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I have spent the better part of these past eight months tasting, assessing, contemplating, excogitating, dreaming about and purchasing Chablis. I may have once believed that the rooted obsession incited by my visit to the kimmeridgian zone last July would cease and desist by the time the clock struck 2017. I was dead wrong. If ever there was a Chablis lifer transformed, you are looking at him.

Chablis Grand Cru can be found in the commune of Chablis on the right bank of the Serein River and the appellation comprises seven climats; Blanchot, Bougros, Les Clos, Grenouilles, Preuses, Valmur, and Vaudésir. “The terroirs, formed in the Upper Jurassic era, 150 million years ago, are composed of limestone and marl with Exogyra virgula, tiny oyster fossils. Chablis Grand Cru is one of the rare French AOC wines to make reference to its geology, notably the Kimmeridgean age.”

If at first you have not written enough about a particular subject, keep on writing. My first grand assessment took my olfactory and gustatory senses, emotions and tangent extrapolating explorations into 76 examples of Chablis and Petit Chablis. I followed that exercise with 92 reviews to cover all the Premier Cru tasted in Chablis and Auxerre back in July of 2016 and also those I have assessed in the months since. Finally I have come to the Grand Cru, a group of top echelon Chablis that caused more personal reflection and inner exorcism than I’d like to admit. The count is 54 wines reviewed. At last, again and again I must pay retrospective and forward thanks to @purechablis@vinsdechablis@BourgogneWines and @vinsdebourgogne.

Valmur

The south-facing, Right Bank Grand Cru “Valley of Ripeness” parcel known as Valmur is from “val” which refers to “valley” and the French “mur,” which means “ripe.” Valmur and its great, late afternoon sun ensures phenolic ripeness unlike anywhere else, to accentuate the richness and the éclat. Yes there is this strong personality and guarantee of Grand Cru acidity but the creamy richesse is unparalleled for Chablis. Piuze recognizes both the place and the vintage and just lets this Valmur run free. What else should it be? Drink 2018-2023. Tasted July 2016 @patrickpiuze@LaCelesteLevure@LiffordON

Before launching into the Valmur 2012 first an exhortatory preface, or at least a contextual, cautionary tale from Patrick Piuze. “It will look a bit older, on the nose, because we tasted so many 2015s.” True, we have just sailed through 18 (plus one 2014) so this Valmur does seem “dressed-up” and boozy with alcohol but it’s OK because the acidity is divine. Evolution has done some rendering and I get the feeling Patrick was picking later then than he is now. The liqueur leads a remarkable cocktail of pure Valmur geology distilled, subservience to ends, almost now, but now quite. If this Piuze Valmur is a Chablis meme to an aramaic Belshazzar’s feast, the Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin is clearly understood writing on the wall. Drink 2016-2021. Tasted July 2016 @patrickpiuze@LaCelesteLevure@LiffordON

Valmur under the spell and with classic Collet acumen is a tale of two parts told with seamless transitions. Two to three year-old Allier “Moyenne chauffe” barrels hold the central Grand Cru hill’s proud climat fruit for 12 months followed by five extra fortifying and corralling months. The Valmur clocks in at a minor but important and impressing half per cent extra of alcohol and you can nose the slow-release, micro-oxygenated wood. In part two there is this rich and expansive vacuum with definite taxing spice and of course that Collet-specific lemon acidity. The back end is dripping with citrus, taking the reins and leaving the wood behind. In another year or two the transition will complete for perfect symmetry. Drink 2018-2024. Tasted July 2016 #domainejeancollet

The Valmur is a négoce Grand Cru from Sébastien Dampt, so very rich with razor-thin mineral pastry, fruit and cream layered upon that mineral many times over. It is raised in some wood and some inox, resulting in a tiered tart wrought with some weight. This is really like sucking on a mouthful of rocks, at first, all saline and tangy. Then the custard and the (on the edge of) brûléed orchard fruit creams in. The tension hangs in that caramelized balance in a Grand Cru set from a very clean and vintage driven take on Valmur. Drink 2018-2022. Tasted July 2016 @SebastienDampt@LesVieuxGarcons

Valmur leaves an indelible mark because in 2014 this one is just so confident and impresses with purpose. The Grand Cru vineyard is located on the top of the hill, both east and southwest facing, with some clay and marl (as a vein into the kimmeridgian sub-soil). There is more richness in Valmur and here surely a by-product of stupidly low (25 hL/L) yields. This carries in its DNA the complex and multi-faceted variegation of Chablis soils intertwined, reticulated and defined. Will make itself readily available ahead of the other Fèvre Grand Cru because of its richness as an extension of soil and exposition. Drink 2017-2023. Tasted July 2016 @williamfevre_@WoodmanWS

From winemaker Fabien Moreau and his tiny parcel of 50 year-old vines sandwiched between Vaudésir to the north and Les Clos to the south. A pittance (for Grand Cru) percentage of new oak is used for half of the fruit, eventuating in beautifully delineated bitter density and fresh dressed pith. Quite open for business at this early stage but so very complex and variegated. Upon a second go ’round you might think reductive when what you are really getting is cool fresh mineral, away from bitter and into the yet unresolved. Drink 2018-2022. Tasted July 2016 @ChristianMoreau@rogcowines

Benoît Droin has crafted an esteemed, highly amenable and juicy Valmur in effete for break of dawn business openness. The acidity is really quite round, more so than the Moreau and quite in contrast to the Premier Cru (Montmains and Vaillons) Droins. There is more pitch and assertiveness in Valmur to be sure, qualities to qualify its Grand Cru positioning though still surprising to note how well it drinks while young. It’s a funny vintage to be sure, with more weight, aromatic liquor and pooling viscosity than most. Droin’s Valmur will develop a bilateral petrol-honey secondary note before the decade strikes end. Drink 2016-2020. Tasted July 2016 #Droin

Bougros

(Côte De Bouqueyreaux)

The Bougros vines grown on the plateau and while the aromatics are a bit reserved (like those on the Piuze Terroir Découverte) this inward and recondite Grand Cru is an intense, raging from within Chablis. It is this collected and surrounded power that keeps Patrick’s Bougros so in control and while it is labeled at 12.5 per cent alcohol, Piuze admits that is maxes out at 12.2. This is significant when you consider what sort of sapidity plays out in the context of enigmatic behaviour. “You can’t have a duality between acidity and alcohol,” says Piuze. “I don’t want high alcohol.” What he wants is chaste tension and while 2015 is not the perfect vestal vintage to realize his plans, it stays the course nonetheless. Drink 2018-2023. Tasted July 2016 @patrickpiuze@LaCelesteLevure@LiffordON

Brocard’s Grand Cru Bougros ’14 is the most reductive Chablis tasted so far this week, striking, chiseled and young beyond youth. Saline and briny to the hyperbole of its younger siblings, the implosion of full extract is at once arid and then rich. This is a full-on pure and simply beautiful Bougros, precisely tart and very long. Will age gracefully into the middle next decade, with ease. In the hands of Brocard Bougros to the west is neither entry or exit point but more like the epicentre of the action. This 2014 is certainly a top example for the vintage and the Grand Cru. Wait three years for it to unwind. Drink 2019-2026. Tasted with Julien Brocard at the domaine, July 2016 @chablisbrocard@LiffordON

Côte Bouguerots is the two point two hectare Domaine plot close to the river at the base of the Bougros Grand Cru hill. The extreme anti-steppe where only calcaire and kimmeridgian soils exist is the moonscape of Burgundy, bald, austere and machinery retarding. The ’14’s stark karst reality bleeds sea salinity, intense citrus and as much inferential mineral as this place can and ever will. Such a masculine assertion of Chablis predicated on this sort of fluidic geology and assortative power comes across in only so few. While the complexity is increased in Côte Bouguerots it is also like a vacuum within the greater clime, concentrating richness without fatness. This is, simply stated, a great white bottle of wine. The length goes on forever. Drink 2019-2030. Tasted July 2016 @williamfevre_@WoodmanWS

If Bougros in 2013 is the outlier and the exit west away from the Grand Cru, the follow up 2014 turns that right around. In this terrific mineral meets acidity vintage Bougros strikes as the entry point into Grand Cru Chablis. The southwest facing climat launches the introductory impression of the Fèvre Domaine GCs, with idiosyncratic layers of citrus, namely lemon and lime. Fifty per cent of the Bougros (six of 12 hectares) lies calm and poised on the flat portion of the already mild slope, offering easier access and amenability. A launch point from where control is transferred from the operating system to the process and ultimately, the programmer. That would be winemaker Didier Séguier, he who takes a calm ferment and squeezes out its vital juices to render Chablis with all the attributes it has come to define. Drink 2017-2022. Tasted July 2016 @williamfevre_@BouchardPere@WoodmanWS

The southwest facing Bougros is the furthest strip west of the Grand Cru climats at modest altitudes ranging from 130 to 170m. Bougros strikes me as the hardest to read and the outlier of the Grand Cru because it is less expressive of that necessary and contemplative Chablis mineral idiom but don’t be fooled into thinking it bourgeois or insignificant. That type off thinking will only look for trouble and lead to dire straits. “Sitting on a fence that’s a dangerous course.” Bougros of marl and clay is a clam before a storm Grand Cru. It is sneaky dangerous and long. The limestone permeate is integrated with deep intent. It fills all nooks but with nary an act of argumentation or attrition. The vintage is an expanding one, not so much one that leaves a direct impression as much as one of wide expression. The palate circulates with citrus and zest, more lime and grapefruit than others and in warmer tenses, native and prominent. One upon a time in the west. Drink 2016-2021. Tasted April 2015 @williamfevre_@WoodmanWS

Côte De Bouqueyreaux

The Côte de Bouqueyraux terroir is a (45°) steep-sloping solid bedrock section of Bougros. It’s also a name referring to “how the monks are calling it” back in the pressoir day. “Bougueriot,” from the Latin “bucca” which gave the Old French “bouque” (shrunken). Or, Boquereau, which took its name from “bouque-eau,” (narrow passage by the water). Piuze made only 600 bottles in 2015 from this highly specified, laser-focused, riverine-simulated and disciplined Grand Cru vineyard. This is tasted 14th in the great caves breakfast Piuze rendezvous with Patrick and is unequivocally the most intense. And yet there is this creamy, nutty and tart stone tree-fruit character that adds a level of toothsome delight. Will chalk that up to 2015, from “a really sharp place,” coupled with the warm vintage. Drink 2018-2023. Tasted July 2016 @patrickpiuze@LaCelesteLevure@LiffordON

At 45° in angle the steep (perhaps the steepest) Côte de Bouqueyraux dangles Bougros like bait on a line and is the farthest thing from a shrunken (from the French “bouque”) or shrinking violet. This 2011 is what Patrick Piuze refers to as “in between ’09 and ’15 in style; my style.” He puckers, shrugs and adds, “pretty good for a vintage that isn’t supposed to age.” Once again it is Piuze that looks at Chablis, at Grand Cru Chablis from the very recent past as a wine of THE past. Most vignerons would see a 2011 Grand Cru as an infant, barely evolved and far too young to even think about passing any real judgement. Pious is the most pragmatic, honest and transparent of them all. It is both refreshing and confounding. Either for Bougros or in sub-climat terms this Côte De Bouqueyreaux is in the sweet spot. Citrus fruit, saline-mineral innervation and a vintage-affected softening combine for this lime-sherbet palate. Will drink with perfect reason for three to four more years. Drink 2016-2020. Tasted July 2016 @patrickpiuze@LaCelesteLevure@LiffordON

Vaudésir

Jean-François Bordet’s Vaudésir tells a climat tale with the sort of precision and clarity that really explains the Cru comparative to Les Preuses and Les Clos. Bordet took over in 1988 so 25-plus years of experience later and with the exceptional vintage in pocket he has really locked into Vaudésir. The finesse that calmly breathes from SB’s fruit farmed on this double semi-circled, steep-sloping hill is certainly mellow, golden and mature. It’s also alive. Bordet makes use of 10 hL wood tanks for aging (12 months) plus six more in stainless steel. This has been in bottle six months, just long enough to reveal the intoxicating perfume, the power, rich texture and the elegance. In the present (or futur proche) Bordet’s ’14 Vaudésir will incite your desires, as it will say “je vais congelé vos désirs.” J-F shrugs and holds out his hands as he tells you this so after a glass (and an exceptional meal prepared by Eric Gallet at Le Bourgogne in Auxerre) some of your fantasies may come true. The effect may come with less jouissance than Les Preuses and not quite as much puissance of Les Clos but true power nonetheless. Drink 2018-2024. Tasted July 2016 @BordetJean@TheCaseForWine

For some producers Vaudésir is the pinnacle of their Chablis expression and yet here it seems the entry point as it leads in a tasting of four Grand Crus. From three parcels in the amphitheatre, one right at the top by the wood and two at the mid-way point on the hill. A direct, in your sight lines Vaudésir, so very lemon-lime push-pulled and densely tart. It’s taut but not sour, tight but not cringing from the tightening of the winch. The most masculine of Vaudésir perhaps with few equals though unwavering and unquestionable in its achievement of balance. The Inox secret is discarded (or complicated, depending on your vantage point) in favour of 100 per cent (15-16 years) old oak. This is Grand Cru after all. Drink 2019-2029. Tasted July 2016 @Billaud_Simon

Here from Vincent Tremblay a nicely stinky (dare it be said) and reductive Vaudésir of major mineral compression and the combative exaggerated energies of weight, body and density. This is a powerful expression of the climat that sits atop the Grand Cru hill, unique in round shape and steep slope as if created as a natural and ancient amphitheatre. Tremblay cuts a white stony line right through his chemin des vaudésirs, as any self-respecting Grand Cru Chablis should. Drink 2018-2023. Tasted July 2016 #DomaineGerardTremblay

Vaudésir from Fèvre’s Didier Séguier is the consummate erudite expression from the amphitheatre-chiseled and curled Grand Cru. It is here where there simply is no clay, only the calcaire for the kimmeridgian, so its all about high mineral commission. All Vaudésir is meant for aging but this, this is something other. Séguier the winemaker is a generous fellow, a giver of Chablis, gift-wrapped in 50 per cent oak and tank equality (as he does for all GC). The vernacular spoken is very direct primarily because of the veritable bath of mineral which translates to salinity off the charts. It can be imagined without any real difficulty that the alleged ancient sea bed is in this one. It will be some years before any change is noted and many more until mindfulness reigns in a secondary geological observation. Drink 2019-2028. Tasted July 2016 @williamfevre_@WoodmanWS

Vaudésir in Moreau’s Chablis cellar spent a mere handful of months in one, two and three year-old oak barrels, destined to an end game of gentle spice, then followed up with 24 months in stainless steel. Concentration, resolute vitality and depth render the barrel nearly obsolete, allowing the desires of the Cru’s mineral to really shine through. All that said it is a decidedly feminine expression, delicate and with richesse, but ultimately calm. Will age with charm and grace. Drink 2018-2025 @MoreauLouis1

L’asperule L’abbaye de Citeaux, pommes sautées, raisins, opaline

Blanchot

The Serein River’s Right Bank Grand Cru faces south with vines that average 40 years-old. Neutral barrels are employed for the Piuze Blanchot so that density is derived slowly, effortlessly and with GC corradiation. In the cathedral of Blanchot there is always a compression intro. of mille-feuille flint and citrus but few act with as much immediate amenability as this ’15. Seemingly warm and downy, things begin to increase with intricate complexity and the point of convergence is met where persistence begins, two years down the tractor road, to carry on into the middle of the next decade. Drink 2018-2025. Tasted July 2016 @patrickpiuze@LaCelesteLevure@LiffordON

From the top right (eastern) aspect of the white stones Grand Cru, just across the valley from Montée de Tonnerre. This is a fuller, slightly richer Blanchot but still so direct, piercing and impressed stone-dominant. Great lemon zest shaved into juice and an amplitude rendering dollop of curd. The lemon-curated and curative house continues to flex its citrus style. Once again, the enigma of Inox barrel and old barrels used. Why pour this last of the four Grand Crus? I suppose it’s because the rich fruit versus exigent stone is the epitome of Chablis paradox, in retrospect and with further addendum to what seemed obvious at the time. Blanchot is the gate-keeper of Grand Cru middle ground. Drink 2019-2027. Tasted July 2016 @Billaud_Simon

Four of Domaine Laroche’s total of six-plus Grand Cru hectares are in Blanchot and comprise one third of all holdings in this ancient kimmeridgian climat and its southeast exposure. “We are the ambassador of this Grand Cru,” informs Elodie Saudemont, noting the low and slow ripening processes on the eastern portion of the Cru. The white clay defines Les Blanchots, infusing a fine minerality that delivers a purported sense of fitness and fineness to this wine. In 2014 there is a delicate arabesque lacework and a certain salinity, explicit and inherent to Blanchot. Floral like no other Grand Cru, of stereotypical but percipient aromas that call to the air what can only be white flowers. Not that it’s any shock but the length is exceptional too. Drink 2019-2027. Tasted July 2016 @DomaineLaroche@SelectWinePros@Select_Wines

Réserve De L’obédience is a cuvée coalesced from the best of Les Blanchots barrels, those that show the greatest balance between fruit and acidity. The entire technical team takes part in the process, to the end for a wine with the most finesse. There is no true reference point for such a wine, that is unless you can close your eyes, travel back in time and conjure up some 9th century L’Obédiencerie or 13th century Saint-Martin monks working a pressoir. Grand Cru Chablis separates itself from the rest for good reason but because L’obédience is a cuvée consolidated from the best of Les Blanchots’ barrels this is something other, or rather it is a cuvée spotted in a light separate from the rest of the Chablis Grand Cru. An unusual amalgamation, beyond the idea of selecting the best plots, into the concept of selecting the best wines. Here the practice of lutte raisonnée ensures balance is profligate and etched in stone. The acidity is pitch-perfect, the fruit a metronomic peregrination from streaming to richness and back again. Multiple exposures and various levels of ripeness be damned, this Grand Cru skips over the tribulations of plots and vintage variation. The best is stolen and used for great purpose. And 2014 was a friend. Drink 2019-2029. Tasted July 2016 @DomaineLaroche@SelectWinePros@Select_Wines

The Long-Depaquit treatment for Blanchots is with 25 per cent barrel. A real preserved lemon and just a hint of paraffin is replete with such elegance and finesse on the nose. Les Blanchots is at once soft but also of a sexy smoulder, like flint that has been sparked, extinguished and left with a lingering wisp. So beautifully wound and full of demurred grace. But don’t be fooled, there is a punch of acidity and underlying spirit. The house accounts for a meaningful if ponderous part of the Blanchot riddle, its centrism wrapped in a mystery, in a fruit versus stone enigma. Recondite, interwoven Chablis. Drink 2019-2025. Tasted July 2016 @Matth_Mangenot@Bichotwine#LongDepaquit

Down by the river with #raveneau #grandcru #blanchot #chablis @lafolieauxerre #2009 #francoisraveneau #thankful

It would be misleading to address Raveneau’s Blanchot as chardonnay even as we know it as such because Raveneau produces wines as unique as door keys. They are so inimitable and each will only open the gate to its own unique perception. Blanchot is the southernmost of the seven Chablis Grand Cru climats and blankets the southeastern side of Les Clos. The Raveneau narration does not convey the notion of manifest feeling but instead splits the axiomatic atom of the climat. A sip and you are inside the Blanchot, gliding and passing through rock as if you are the ethereal and the wine is the solid foundation of thought, pathos and avowal. There are aromas that combine citrus and umami with a sweetness that can’t be denied or defined. The wine is just a child, complex, shy and yet unable to express both its meaning and power. But you try to get inside its head, stumbling over kimmeridgian rock replete with the smithereen-crushed shells of ancient fossils. This is a calm young Blanchot and you melt away while under its spell. Three more years should render its hidden meaning. Drink 2019-2034. Tasted July 2016

Restaurant La Folie, Auxerre

Les Preuses

Les Preuses faces west, the Grand Cru Patrick Piuze notes “is always last. You cannot beat Les Preuses in Chablis.” The crux of what Piuze is aiming to accomplish with Grand Cru fruit is motivated by this climat and explained like this. “We are early pickers, early bottlers and (patient observers of) late transformations.” Semi-getting on towards vieilles vignes of 35 years are grown in Kimmeridgian limestone and clay soil. La Voie Pierreuse (The Stony Path) is the Piuze GC muse and his tightly wound elucidation will take longer to unravel, flesh up and drink heartily than most. Even in 2015 there will be no immediate Les Preuses gratification but there will be valiance and stony reward. Eventually. Drink 2018-2028. Tasted July 2016 @patrickpiuze@LaCelesteLevure@LiffordON

What separates Chablis from chardonnay begins with these 65 year-old vines, with healthy yields (50 hL/H) that are perfect for the vintage from this stoic and iconic Cru. Here is the essentiality of Les Preuses, “the juice of the stone,” saline, crustaceous, briny and simply, utterly trenchant. This is the vraiment Preuses impression, a fossil entrenched in the chardonnay and subsequently on the brain and the senses. A straight jacket Chablis with length up Les Preuses, back to the river and then straight back up and away into the woods. Inox barrel (sic) and old barrels used. Drink 2020-2030. Tasted July 2016 @Billaud_Simon

Les Preuses is comprised of two point five hectares in two plots held in the Fèvre Domaine, one east facing and steep, the second southwest, flat and deep. The memory of an old Roman stone road “Perreuse” lays beneath, as marker and sentinel to the ancient rocks and stones below. Les Preuses is a blend of the two plots, both equal in delivery of rich and mineral elegant fruit. No other Grand Cru offers such near-identical balance from blocks meant to compliment one another. It is this symmetry, mille-feuille layering and gainful repetition that dishes LP such a a different sort of singular variegation, not so much a vein but a 12-string strum over top one another. There is more length to speak clearly of and ultimate elongation in Les Preuses. It is simply citrus beautiful. A near-perfect record, from side A to side B. Play either one first because it always comes around full circle. Drink 2018-2027. Tasted July 2016 @williamfevre_@WoodmanWS

There is a certain sense of romanticism that surrounds Les Preuses, a cinematic beauty in thinking about a two thousand year-old Roman road which ran below the current vineyard. “Perreuse,” meaning stone and tasted directly after Bougros offers a stark inherent and stylistic contrast and unfairly puts the western frontier Grand Cru to shame. In Les Preuses the fruit speaks with beautiful infancy and fanciful clarity. It’s fleshy, creamy soft and delivers Fèvre’s most markedly chèvre-like aroma. The palate replay indicates this climat is expressly possessive of true goût de terroir. The lines led by stone and friable marl deliver crisp and cool streaks, climbing to higher climes, over hills and collines. Even in the climate-confused 2013 vintage Les Preuses is top quality Chablis, above and beyond. Drink 2017-2023. Tasted April 2015 @williamfevre_@WoodmanWS

This particular concentrated salinity of Les Preuses is briny but not oyster briny, verdant but not savoury, tart but not piercing. The personality forged here is a calm before storm that will soon rage for three to five years and then settle into its predetermined gentile nature. A little bit of hay and popcorn feel is noted from more oak obviousness that couples with the vintage towards developing a richer style. In Ontario the equivalent ideal is like that of Tawse’s Paul Pender and when his wines age they remind me of Les Preuses. Here a great example of a Grand Cru in different hands and what impact the producer has on the specific expression for the terroir. Drink 2017-2022. Tasted July 2016 #LaChablisienne@vbartement@Vinexxperts

Grenouilles

In 2014 Grenouille in Cyril Testut’s domain returns to the typical and the expected. Though he employs 17 per cent new oak this persists stylistically so very much in the same range as his Premier Crus. You get oak in the guise of a minor crème anglaise and even more spice, but a delicate one. Round acidity is pronounced and in surround of the fruit richness as per the Grenouilles climat and this is observed as a very dedicated wine to the oeuvre. Lower yields (than the PCs) at 45 hL/H and 50 year-old vines combine for full-on variegated effect. This shows off great length, in oscillation and circular return. Grenouilles is different and the appreciation here is for loyalty and adherence to what is necessary. It’s so simple. Application of “cuivres et boites et assemblage” was completed before bottling. Drink 2017-2025. Tasted July 2016 #DomaineTestut

Some wines can be understood and disseminated just fine, but others are better vetted with the winemaker. Like this Grenouilles ’13, tasted at the domaine with Cyril Testut. The triad of vintage, climat and handling is made clear under Cyril’s supervision and explained with tacit and axiomatic clarity. “I like this vintage very much, difficult but very interesting.” Indeed it is vintage with good botrytis, not typical but so very interesting. In comparative literary and mythological ways it and Alsace Pinot Gris Grand Cru (and Hengst in particular) are construed to be running in parallel lines, with ripeness, metallurgy, orange blossom and tropical notes. But again there is a reigning in and a balance struck to stay away from the lychee, nectarine and mango spectrum. Minerality is still the king so you may allow yourself to be stationed in Beaune as well. I find great preoccupation in Testut’s Grenouilles ’13. It reads like few other Grand Cru. Drink 2016-2023. Tasted July 2016 #DomaineTestut

The smallest of the greats Château Grenouilles is Chablisienne’s Grand Cru (seven of 9.5 farmed hectares), situated below Vaudésir and sandwiched between (right) Les Clos, Valmur and (left), Bougros and Preuses. Grenouilles is the only estate in Chablis where grapes are picked, crushed, vinified and aged directly within the vineyard itself. Only in this Grand Cru and heightened by this increasingly understood ’12 vintage is a wonderful note of green fraises du bois and floor of the bois above Les Grenouilles. Then comes a palate pricked with darts of green apple and such tart density. Really inward, taut and determined Chablis. Poured at the domaine by Oenologist Vincent Bartement. Drink 2018-2022. Tasted July 2016 #LaChablisienne@vbartement@Vinexxperts

Tasted with Oenologist Vincent Bartement at the domaine. The Grand Cru Grenouilles sits just above the D965 and the Serein River, with Les Clos and Valmur to its left, Bougros and Preuses to its right and Vaudésir above. It may be the least understood, least discussed and oft forgotten Grand Cru, in part because La Chablisienne farms and bottles a near exclusive (seven of the 9.5 hectares) quantity on the smallest of the Chablis Grand Cru. In a small vertical (that included ’12, ’10 and ’05) when you travel back a year ahead of that cracking 2012 there emerges a clear olfactive difference. The self-effaced “neologism with cloudy contours” whiffs into more herbology and perhaps some crustaceous notes. Certainly a raised funky beat. The gustative sensation salvos to more glycerin and although not as much texture, the age is offering a minor oxidative, liquid maize drip into perceived honey. As a consequence length is not as pronounced and if this ’11 is (at this stage) the most awkward of the three (consecutive vintages), it is also the most tactile and the most astute. Drink 2016-2021. Tasted July 2016 #LaChablisienne@vbartement@Vinexxperts

In a retrospective examined through a line-up with ’12, ’11 and ’05 in the vertical mix the development of Château Grenouilles emerges with some new-found clarity. This ’10 offer insights in ways the follow up vintages are not yet able to, now a year into secondary notes. The 2010 funk du fromage is musky strong, at first, and then beautifully developed from and into metal-mineral. Wonderful texture from 2010 and very little of the corn liquor. None even. A terrific vintage and what seems to me a near-perfect expression of Les Grenouilles. The most distinction is unearthed and appreciated, a calming pause, poise and such perfect temperament. A wonderful wine. Drink 2016-2023. Tasted with Vincent Bartement, July 2016 #LaChablisienne@vbartement@Vinexxperts

Château Grenouilles Chablis Grand Cru 2005 at 11 years-old is beautifully and slow-micro oxidatively evolved though in many ways suspended in animation and almost not at all. Closer to 2010 than the others (tasted along with ’11 and ’12) for sure, with compressed minerality and excellent glycerin woven into wonderful texture. There will be two to three more years of optimal drinking before a next level oxidation begins to break down the fruit and turn the mineral into mandarin orange mixed with coppery metal. Take advantage of this current open window. Drink 2016-2018. Tasted July 2016 #LaChablisienne@vbartement@Vinexxperts

Grenouilles is a Grand Cru that Piuze used to work with but does not anymore. This 2009 is close to achieving its full resolve, now waxy, oleaginous, briny and filled with the kind of glück usually reserved for older riesling, especially out of Alsace. Piuze discusses Grenouilles as “the most uni-dimensional” of all the Grands Cru, but he likes the way it has come to this point. If it has to be a one-trick perfect pony than so be it. Drink 2016-2017. Tasted July 2016 @patrickpiuze@LaCelesteLevure@LiffordON

Les Clos

Piuze gathers equal and opposing Les Clos fruit from two parcels, first (and in dominance) in communality with Blanchots and then by Valmur. While not a perfect vintage for the grand Grand Cru by any stretch of the Chablis imagination, precision and clarity is a guarantee under the tutelage of Patrick Piuze. Hail was certainly a factor so quantity is sacrificed to quality, with herbs, bitters and spicy salinity the collective foil to early picked fruit. It’s a toss-up whether or not Les Clos is more successful than Blanchots and it remains to be seen if phenolics will drive the ageability machine, but Patrick’s caution and judgement should see this through to live another day. It is Grand Cru after all and deserves at least two years respect. Drink 2018-2024. Tasted July 2016 @patrickpiuze@LaCelesteLevure@LiffordON

Here Les Clos is a magnified adaptive narrative of the Grand Cru, rich and full of ripe excess. Riper than most of the others, which is saying something. Magnetic, platinum mineral with very expressive fruit from Billaud-Simon’s take out of the grandaddy of all Chablis climats. The biggest bad boy of the flight and in the eyes of the world, textbook Grand Cru. Salinity, floral blossom airy and briny, though not quite expressive of the fossilized, ancient river trenchancy of Les Preuses. But again, Chablis at it old school, from very little shrouded or spice-driven wood, classic, cool-climate, mineral-driven Chablis. The summation confirms why it is poured after Vaudésir and Les Preuses but ahead of Blanchots. Drink 2018-2025. Tasted July 2016 @Billaud_Simon

At first seemingly a different expression of Les Clos, both in aromatics and personality. There is this exoticism about Collet’s ’14, a perfume that imagines far east markets, of incense and peppermint. Then the terroir takes charge, of precious metals, platinum, gemstones and the Exogyra Virgula of the ancient soil’s shells. This combination of sweet fragrance and mineral contusion is intoxicating for a Les Clos. The Collet take is also neutral with respect to wood and unlike Valmur, lemon preserve appears nowhere on the forecasted radar. And yet there is more spirit here than many, if not quite as laser-focused as others. Drink 2018-2025. Tasted July 2016 #domainejeancollet

Laroche’s (45 year-old) vines sit at the bottom of the slope where the ground ripples with an excess of limestone. Laroche build its Les Clos architecture through this super-structured mineral foundation, the use of enclosing shrubs for micro-biological bio-diversity and wood posts as opposed to iron. This Les Clos does not mess around. It’s a straightforward expression in mimic of a craftsman’s personality, i.e. technical director Gregory Viennois. As a portrait it makes a direct connection and an impression with extract, but also tannin and fruit of true Les Clos intensity. This is a truly engaging and laser Les Clos, of mouth watering acidity and repeatedly encouraging return sip-ability. Drink 2018-2024. Tasted July 2016 @DomaineLaroche@SelectWinePros@Select_Wines

Moreau’s take on the grand-père Grand Cru is more obvious, showy and in exhibition of wood apparent musculature on the masculine side of the Grand Cru spectrum, not so much as spice but with volume and a broadening in mouthfeel. The mineral is tangy strong and will surely need a few years to settle into the rich fruit and savvy wood. This is really a baby as far as Les Clos is concerned and should not even be considered to be opened any time soon. The long road ahead will twist, turn and loop back into itself before Les Clos settles into the karst of its limestone landscape. Take the time to navigate the sinkholes and cavernous spaces and rewards in the name of miasma, massepain and miel will one day fill your glass. Drink 2020-2028. Tasted at the domaine with Frédérique Chamoy, July 2016 @MoreauLouis1

The Fèvre holdings are not so much a cornering of the market but more so, let’s say, are representative as existing out of the creator and chair of the exchange. The four hectares owned, farmed and produced of the largest of the (25 hectare) Grand Crus confirms Fèvre as the largest producer of Les Clos. Fifty per cent of the noble and lofty locale was planted by William’s father in the 1940’s, at the top of the hill. This 2014 is prodigious, ponderous and cracking, because it is a Fèvre, due to the house approach for this stand alone vintage and simply by virtue of that vintage. Here you have the richest Les Clos of them all, perhaps, but the puissance is dramatic. There is more pith and density here than any other. It is simply a wow Grand Cru expression, searing, intense, layered, compact, compressed and very, very long. This is the most gregarious, strutting peacock of Chablis. Tasted at the domaine with Director Didier Séguier. Drink 2020-2035. Tasted July 2016 @williamfevre_@WoodmanWS

Whereas Les Preuses persists as a player as part of its own height scaling process, Les Clos is already perched, permanently entrenched at the precipice. The permeate is integrated with a commotion of purity and clarity like no other. The stone is juiced like real lime in metronome time, with nothing but time on side to see this through 20 years of evolution. The richest fruit, laciest of organza overlay and highest degree of variegation has been gently coaxed from this storied Grand Cru by Director Didier Séguier. Top Les Clos from the challenging vintage. Drink 2017-2033. Tasted April 2015 @williamfevre_@WoodmanWS

I find in this a different sort of Les Clos from Sébastien Dampt, a négoce Grand Cru that is more linear, taut and even a bit austere. I’d go so far as to say this is the most piercing Dampt and the most piercing Les Clos I’ve comes across. For Dampt the first Les Clos was 2010 and here is his fifth vintage the Sébastien stride has been compassed and effectuated. This Les Clos will live very long as the length is exceptional. Drink 2019-2029. Tasted July 2016 @SebastienDampt@LesVieuxGarcons

Together with Sébastien Dampt I tasted two bottles of the 2013 Les Clos because he was not satisfied with the first. It was the side by side comparison of the two négoce Grand Cru that taught me things about the Cru, the vintage and Dampt. Initially speaking this can retrospectively be looked at as quite anti-2013 and as such more in line with the follow-up ’14. It alighted linear, taut and nearly as piercing. But unlike 2014 it was broad, soft and filled with French crème. Perhaps this first bottle was a bit frenzied and inculpably enzymatic. The second bottle tasted, reminded and reacted more like a ’13, ripe and near boozy, rich and expressive, with the spice so very pronounced. What is learned is Dampt’s unique ability to perpetuate a house style, despite the vintage and the Cru. Some things can’t be fought or changed so his is quite a big Les Clos but in 2013 not without his signature line. Drink 2018-2025. Tasted July 2016 @SebastienDampt@LesVieuxGarcons

The Chablisienne piece of Les Clos takes a fine and even a middle path with copacetic, inert cooperation interfaced between bled citrus and mined mineral. This is a very linear, direct, purely and precisely informative Les Clos. It speaks to the idea of consistency and to the expected despite coming out of a strange vintage. With a line clearly drawn into the dry, stone-flint, “mineral touch” Chablis directive it will take some time to develop its comfort level of flesh though fruit will always be the understudy. Drink 2019-2026. Tasted July 2016 #LaChablisienne@vbartement@Vinexxperts

Lamblin et Fils Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos 2013, Burgundy, France

Smoky, wannabe flinty Grand Cru with a creamy, malo feel. Like a scoop of Grand Cru gelato, with a real almond paste smoothed into marzipan finish. Clearly speaks with more wood finishing than most and rounds out the stones of Les Clos with polish and crown moulding. As a result I would expect this needs a year to integrate but not as long as the more mineral examples. The fleshing has already begun and oxidative notes will rear before too long. Will drink beautifully beginning in the summer of 2017 and for two plus years beyond. Drink 2017-2020. Tasted July 2016

The very specific flint from top to bottom slope off of three hectares of terroir brings a climat’s certain acidity from the soil and in the guise of a multi/micro-parcel tang. From macro-mineral to stone fruity not this specific anywhere so fine. Does not show and will not show fatigue any time sooner or later, after all, it never has to climb to the top of Les Clos. The length here is legendary. It will be tough to find a better example for the vintage, from Les Clos and into an examination more specific and so precise. Drink 2019-2033. Tasted July 2016

Just because the richest of Grand Cru fruit can handle the added value, Les Clos receives a generous 35 per cent barrel fermentation. As per Les Clos the corpulence and amenability adds up to one grand and inviting Grand Cru Chablis. Always critically evident and full of joie de vivre, there is roundness on les Clos like no other Grand Cru and Long-Depaquit is front and centre to the end of that ideal. What separates this house’s style is the long and slowly evolving finish because and with thanks to the wood adding texture and cream to all aspects of its relationship with the largest Grand Cru. Drink 2018-2024. Tasted July 2016 @Matth_Mangenot@Bichotwine#LongDepaquit

Les Clos in 2014 to be honest is surprisingly a much more approachable Grand Cru, especially tasted side by side with Bougros, with nary a reductive moment. Here is the broad approach, a rich style, consumer-friendly chardonnay with a willingness to please to no end. Everything about this wine is liquid gold, like a still Champagne, haute of couture and stylish beyond words. That sense of affluence in style, and poise drift away dreamily into a slow, languid drizzle of warm caramel. Les Clos is anything but austere in the hands of many but particularly here, with this Brocard. Drink 2017-2023. Tasted July 2016 @chablisbrocard@LiffordON

Julien Brocard pours the Grand Cru Les Clos 2007 blind from magnum and the first impression is this seems to have at least 10 years on it, but it’s probably older than I think. My initial guess is 2002. From what most mainstream critics considered to be a classic stone-mineral vintage with average acidity, I am surprised by the density of mineral so culpable to its oxidative tendency but the acidity keeps it very much alive. The cork was not in the best shape so this clearly had an bomb effect on speeding up aging by five years. A 2007 that acts like a 2002 is not such a terrible thing. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted July 2016 @chablisbrocard@LiffordON

Grand Cru Moutonne Monopole

The greatest of paradoxical moments is shared in confessional confidence with Moutonne because not just anyone can make a wine with the name and of such a singular distillation from within a venn diagram of places. While some lieu-dit in Chablis share affinities, territorial geography and climats with larger Premier Cru, it is only Moutonne that stands alone in the schematic drawn up for the Grand Crus. Though the Moutonne can’t help but take on the atypical characteristics of the 2013 vintage it also can’t escape from itself. Les deux visages are always relegated into the dichotomous and interconnected realm, of Les Preuses (five per cent) controlled with manifest destiny by Les Blanchots. Les Preuses’ fruit is feisty and must be heard and this is so necessary in the tropical and spicy vintage. There is no lychee here but there breathes some very ripe stone fruit and the great white geology of the Grand Cru. In spite of the vintage this is a beautifully managed Moutonne (fermented in 25 per cent barrel) with trenchant piquancy on the finish. Drink 2018-2025. Tasted July 2016 @Matth_Mangenot@Bichotwine#LongDepaquit

Chablis Premier Cru is a multi-faceted, varied and wondrous thing. The interlocking complexity of its many defined micro-terroir parts weaves a tapestry specific to Burgundy and dares to be easily understood. Trying to get to know Premier Cru Chablis lies somewhere between the iconic and the psychotic. It’s like stabbing at clouds, understanding French by way of Greek from Latin, attesting meteorological inclination, grasping at amorphousness. It’s a slippery, discreet and humble secret. Nobody can get a grip on it. Many have tried and others believe they have succeeded. Only the winemaker in Chablis can really intuit the nuances of climats and cru, but even then, the learning curve is boundless and endless.

The relationship between grower, producer and land in Chablis is entirely familial. The master considers and treats the land, vines and grapes with great respect. The farms are totems and the wines amulets, blessed with the power ascribed to protect their owners from danger or harm, but also possessive of poised intelligence. The clarity of this becomes increasingly true with enough time spent with the Premier Cru.

Last week I published 76 notes covering all the Petit Chablis and Chablis AOC wines I have tasted going back to my visit in Burgundy last July. It’s now time to move forward, upwards and deep into the Premier Cru. This appellation is comprised of 40 climats, “a place where vine cultivation is attested for a very long time” and each commune or hamlet within the appellation has one or more main climats, the name of which may be applied to the other Premier Cru climats in that commune. There are 17 main, “flag-bearing” climats. Each are defined by their particular soil, aspect, geological and climatic conditions and the way they are farmed. The communes are located in Beine, Chablis, La Chapelle-Vaupelteigne, Chichée, Courgis, Fleys, Fontenay-près-Chablis, Fyé, Maligny, Milly and Poinchy. In this appellation, the words Premier Cru and/or the name of the climat of origin may be added to the name Chablis for wines grown on Premier Cru plots.

Vins de Bourgognes tells us “no French wine-growing area has pinned its faith more firmly on the facts of geology. The main substrate is Jurassic limestone (specifically, Kimmeridgian limestone) laid down some 150 million years ago. The rock contains deposits of tiny fossilized oyster shells which remind us that Bourgogne once lay beneath a warm ocean. Regarding the Premier Cru, the particularity is that they are produced on either side of the Serein River (left bank and right bank). The most famous climats are those on the right bank, surrounding the Grand Cru.”

If you are searching for definitive information on the micro-terroirs of Chablis you need look no further than the governing board’s website which may just be the best in the business. Precise, critically-pinpointing information awaits. The pages will tell you all you really need to know. Jean Paul Droin is “a winemaker with a passion for history” and has researched the possible origins of the names of the various Climats of Chablis. His findings are presented here.

Left Bank

Montmains

(Butteaux, Forêts)

This Malandes Montmains from old vines (aged 55-60 years on average) carries the most fruit of any in a flight of Left Bank Premier Cru that is not directly attributed to citrus. Truly amenable chardonnay, juicy, replete in absolute faith to the delicacies of Chablis, as a wine raised healthy and fleshy from enough but not egregious barrel. The kind of Chablis laid ripe and ready to swim alongside the whole fish, preferably off the grill, with citrus and herbs to balance to fullness and the gravity. Drink 2017-2020. Tasted July 2016 #DomainedesMalandes@TrialtoQC

Benoît Droin’s Montmains is a far right expression of a Left Bank terroir out of which other producers often allow fruit to trump mineral. Benoît’s take is less about orchard and stone fruit and more into the flint meets acid and mineral Montmains. The layers of tart and mineral are nothing if not exceptional, pulsating and full of nervous energy. Here we find a son’s departure from a father’s winemaking ways, away from the barrel and into the steely, nearly blinding light, but clearly expressing the singular chardonnay effects off of kimmeridgian terroir. A Montmains to wait for and allow to age. Drink 2018-2023. Tasted July 2016

The Tremblay presents a real wet and briny oyster shell Montmains plus some favourable generosity, forest aromatics and a solid construct of medium weight and intensity. Of the five Premier Cru poured by Vincent Tremblay this is the calmest Chablis of the crew. A meditative and restorative Montmains of sheer afternoon delight. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted July 2016 #DomaineGerardTremblay

Montmains from Chablisienne concentrates on the sub-climat of Butteaux, a generally guaranteed Left Bank strength and from a proportion that comes off of argileux soil. Skips over the oily pungency of 2013 and reprises the form and formality of 2012. Ships by bateaux an even more striking Chablis with the leesy sweet nose only Butteaux-Montmains affords, encouraged and developed for richesse. Once again the palate pulses with lemon-lime juiciness, more depth and richness and of course, so bloody piercing. Drink 2018-2022. Tasted July 2016 #LaChablisienne@vbartement@Vinexxperts

From #chablis to #i4c16 see you in #niagara @coolchardonnay @DomaineLaroche

Montmains from Laroche and winemaker Gregory Viennois comes off of the Left Bank from a great wide open valley of wide open spaces. The soil is heavier in clay than just about any Premier Cru and that sweeping vastness solicits solar vulnerability. Montmains can solarize early, be quick to put on excess wait and difficult to avoid oxidative tendencies. Canopy management and picking time is key. In 2014 Augedond brings fruit in wonderful balance to seek and find such great salinity and tingling briny obfuscation. This is where Montmains heads to a tart that is tense, intense and even a bit terse. And so this is direct strike Chablis with supporting flesh. Such a vital and long elixir. Drink 2017-2022. Tasted July 2016 @DomaineLaroche@SelectWinePros

First tasted at the domain with Romain Collet. From 40 year-old vines on mostly white calcaire stony soil and how can you not taste it?! Classic and expected in every way, by Collet, in Montmains, for Chablis. Mostly mineral, somewhat smoky-flinty, by spontaneous fermentation (as with all of Collet’s Chablis) and just a fine thread of fruit clarity. Chablis the way it has to be, leaning back in traditional time but rendered with 21st century clean purity. No surprises and zero waver from the proper and the norm. Well-priced for the specific, direct and always white rock-led Premier Cru. Every Chablis lover should try this at least once. Drink 2016-2022. Tasted July and November 2016 #domainejeancollet

The Montmains Domaine 2014 on Chablis’ Left bank is tethered from three and a half hectares split into three plots, facing southeast. It combines kimmerridgian and marl soils and sees 30 per cent in oak. More richness and full bodied palate to texture compendious behaviour seems inverted or contradictory to 2013, as if the wines were switched at birth. But this is the irony of Montmains, always offering a view to Chablis as a whole and making cause for constant second guessing. Or perhaps it’s the game played by winemaker Didier Séguier, to make use of vintage and wood in ways to subvert and throw fruit-mineral contradictions on its head. Then again, here is Chablis without batonnage so nary a pastille melt, no cream or fat. Lengthens from purity with just a slight bit of almond, without bitter, or butter. Drink 2017-2021. Tasted July 2016 @williamfevre_@WoodmanWS

Montmains by Fèvre in 2013 is Chablis incarnate, a clear portrait in reveal of a non-obliterated view to the depth of the Premier Cru. Though we are once again discussing and assessing the misunderstood and often questionable vintage, Fèvre-consistency and confidence renders moot the trials. This Montmains is both portal and interior laid bare. Resolved and pourable, chardonnay as it is spoken in this cru is ready before it is born. Here the fruit is handled with Premier Cru poise, protracted beyond its borders so that it represents Chablis as a mechanism larger and axiomatic as a whole. The rocks never lie. Drink 2016-2021. Tasted April 2015 @williamfevre_@WoodmanWS

This was tasted at #14c16. As with 2011 but in contrast to 2012, the limestone stands chalky and flinty up front because Pascal Bouchard has allowed it to do so. The site is windy, not so steep and a cooler sort of red clay mixed in terroir. Quite typically energetic 2013 with the mineral sharing the stage with thick air whiffing gassy and atmospheric. It’s a tang that comes from cool metals and it pours or rather oozes with a squeeze of preserved lemon. The Montmains is an open-minded Premier Cru and this Bouchard works with the climat’s malleability to be transformed in a vintage like ’13. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted July 2016

Butteaux

Butteaux with Patrick Piuze stands apart not just from other readings but also independent and aside from his own separate Premier Cru dealings. This Butteaux feels a bit more boozy which is not a vintage surprise, nor is it when you consider the cru and its ability to deliver both texture and gastronomy. The chunks of limestone and chalky topsoil get in here like mineral syrup emulsified into grape extract with a Piuze variegation that subdues both aromatics and linear acidity. This Montmains sub-divided Chablis instead plays with length and focuses on presence, delivering successes on both ends. Drink 2018-2025. Tasted July 2016 @patrickpiuze@LaCelesteLevure@LiffordON

After tasting through 18 2015s Patrick Piuze travels back in time and pulls this Butteaux as his choice for 2010, despite no label but identified by its cork. The sub-climat of Montmains is notable for its variegated character, tang upon tang, density folded into density, tart on tart. It is a fascinating look into the rear-view Piuze mirror from a terrific vintage and a time when he couldn’t yet have fully known what this terroir could do. The citrus is pure, intense and still in demand of attention. Though the window is clearly open it would not surprise to see this drink with similar personality for yet another few eye and palate-popping years. Yet another example of Premier Cru Chablis with ambitious aspirations and a seeker of Japanese inspired Bourgogne cuisine. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted July 2016 @patrickpiuze@LaCelesteLevure@LiffordON

Another side by side 2015 to 2014 comparison which is a brilliant play by Mr. Julien Brocard to offer up a sense of relativity which is essential for understanding not just his, but all Chablis. Great freshness and woven salinity, brine and umami, from the lieu-dit within the greater Montmains climat. Butteaux’s western Montmains locale is one of major importance and significance, stratified and magnified in the crazy good 2014 vintage. The fight concentration is quite remarkable and rendered into pure citrus honey in the hands of Brocard. Really fine and tactile Chablis, tapestry textured, dentil frieze entablature of feigning and palpability. Butteaux is a wine of sun, balance and elegance from which ancient geology is the catalyst to make it all happen. Essential Chablis right here. Drink 2017-2027. Tasted September 2016 @chablisbrocard@LiffordON

Collet first began separating Butteaux from the larger Montmains Premier Cru in the 2009 vintage. Élevage in the obscurity of 2013 came with a significant amount of reduction and Collet did more with Butteaux than so many others could not out of almost any climat. The use of five to 10 year-old barrels has rendered a pretty and elegant Chablis, unheard of in ’13 and while it lacks the drive of ’12 or the acidity of ’14 it is more typical and just plain delicious without any tropical meanderings. Classic Chablis character is discernible albeit in lighter and more demurred tones. The acidity elevates fruit into the preserved kind, part lemon, part leek confit and part courgette pickle. Butteaux in 2013 is gastronomic, like bottled condiments and will ramp up a great piece of fish. Drink 2017-2022. Tasted July 2016 #domainejeancollet

Forêts

It would be impossible to discuss Patrick Piuze and Forêts without bringing Vincent Dauvissat into the fray. To Piuze, Vincent is mentor, friend and benefactor. The fruit for Patrick’s ferment comes from Dauvissat’s domain and similarly in new blood’s hands it breathes the way only Forêts can, “with the confidential creak of oak, in the Dauvissat way.” Vincent’s quite politesse in Patrick’s care puts on confident airs, beneath the moon and with parallel lines drawn in a classically sharp but creamy Chablis. The balance struck between grace and tension is a performance only few from this special corner of Montmains learn to craft. Success in 2015 once again, with the best yet to come. Drink 2018-2026. Tasted July 2016 @patrickpiuze@LaCelesteLevure@LiffordON

Patrick Piuze gains a whiff of his ’13 Forêts. “Hmm, like a riesling.” No other winemaker in Chablis is as honest as Piuze when it comes to extolling or denouncing the virtues of the vintage. “Like a virgin,” is what I begin to hum, “touched for the very first time.” And for the first time in 20 Piuze wines I consider chardonnay because this does not resemble it, but in a way that the rest do not. Forêts here is gassy, aerified, unusual, full of strange atmosphere and just plain atypical. Oh, Madonna this ’13 “made it through the wilderness” in spite of the weirdness, with enough citrus and mineral impression because, well, it’s still Chablis. “Cause only love can last.” Drink 2016-2017. Tasted July 2016 @patrickpiuze@LaCelesteLevure@LiffordON

Forêts is a steely patron of the larger Left Bank Montmains Premier Cru and lies situationally between Butteaux and Montmains proper. Testut treats the mineral-rich fruit pulled from 70 year-old vines by doing it up in demi-muids. Forêts stands alone in its bifid interpretation of Chablis; it forges a hyperbolic relationship with the wisdom and the concentrated intensity of the old vines. The ripeness in the Testut ’15 is echoed while the minerality is amplified. Like climbing a hill by switchbacks and circumventing trails, Cyril Testut’s Forêts cuts angles and elongates the path. This Chablis is linear but with round fruit and presents a fascinating dichotomy. The citrus is different, in a way a form of umami in flavour and the tartness is very frank. Drink 2017-2022. Tasted July 2016 #DomaineTestut

Les Forêts offers great contrast to Montmains but it’s not so direct and easy to compare. Perhaps the most enigmatic, mysterious and magical of all the Left Bank terroirs, in Romain Collet’s hands it bleeds less white stone but is conversely more piercing. With 10 per cent having slept in new barriques for 17 months you would think creamy and gossamer textured but then you would also know why Collet does this with Forêts. It both controls and also elevates the acidity onto a higher, astral Premier Cru plane. And so this elects as pure, unadulterated snow-driven Chablis, with a textural addendum thanks to the oak. Drink 2018-2025. Tasted July 2016 #domainejeancollet

From the sub-climat of Montmains, this second vintage for la Manufacture is harvested earlier than the Beauroy and Vau Ligneau. Laroche’s Forêts is the first 2013 to not display the gaseous, atmospheric Chablis that has come from that vintage. Benjamin convinced his growers to wait, despite the rain, to compromise some quantity for quality. A risk taken but not a grand risk. The barrel took in 25 per cent of the fruit to round out Chablis’ edges while retaining its inherent acidity. Certainly one of the most balanced Premier Cru 2013s it seems, to date. Fuller than many but without blowsy hot air, or density. Drink 2017-2021. Tasted July 2016 @BenjaminLAROCHE@StemWineGroup

Vaillons

(Les Lys, Beugnons, Séchet, Les Minots, Les Roncières)

The vintage can’t hide in Barat’s Vaillons, noted first in a warm, boozy run of the nose, wildy floral and willy-nilly as per the flaunting cru perspective. The palate takes the baton and sprints further, deeper into lanes of ancillary luxury, honeyed, nearly tropical territory. This here is the biggest of the Vaillons, athletic, fast, rippling and perspiring from the summer swelter. Note the maple, apple and nectarine. Enjoy this opiate-edged, vintage-deemed Vaillons while the fruit shines with sun-shining delight. Drink 2016-2018. Tasted July 2016 #domainebarat

A preview of a much needed, friendly vintage with Sébastien Dampt. Alors, @remycharest

Tasted with Sébastien Dampt at the domaine, from 60 year-old vines a Vaillons so very early in its development, bottled two weeks ago, reductive and trying with yeoman effort to preserve freshness. The vintage demands such an emperor’s excess of style, to foster the adage of “this is ancient Chablis in new clothing.” Really just that. Very much a rich and creamy washed rind stylistic happening with lemon preserve and a tonic not really yet seen. Vaillons aperitif. There is the semblence vermouth in here. Drink 2017-2020. Tasted July 2016 @SebastienDampt@LesVieuxGarcons

L’élevage for Vaillons is 15 months, at first with more stainless steel fermentation (95 per cent) than the other Premier Cru. What follows is one third stainless, foudres and barriques. Examples tasted show that Vaillons has the ability to go big, to acquire added corporeal layers of sweet and creamy. It has been seen to drift into apéritif territory without stimulating the appetite. Even in an acidity-led vintage like 2014. Case in point here, a Vaillons with herbal qualities and one in which the wood is very much a part of the highly sapid personality. Needs a year to integrate. Drink 2017-2020. Tasted at the domain with Romain Collet, July 2016 #domainejeancollet

Vaillons from Benoît Droin, like that of his Mont de Milieu and Montée de Tonnerre receives 25 per cent barrel fermentation and maturation though a negligible amount of new oak is used. For this reason the Vaillons is so very flint and and smoke-driven, intense of aromatic liquor, compression and drama. It is the epitome of Chablis rendered in strength from remarkable drive and line-centric forward movement. Look ahead two years to a point of early evanescence where cantata and flesh collide. The hegira for Droin’s Vaillons begins there. Drink 2018-2022. Tasted July 2016 #Droin

Composed from several lieu-dit in the Cru; Les Minots, Roncieres and two parcels each of high solar-powered Chatains and Sécher. A rounder, softer, fuller expression by sun and out of the open-mindedness provided by exposure. Here the house accentuation from stainless steel helps to preserve freshness and keep it at the maximum. A committal success in 2014 for a vintage that demands acidity and freshness, here buoyed by decisions and understanding. Exemplary Vaillons of lemon with a shot of lime injection. Drink 2017-2022. Tasted July 2016 @Billaud_Simon

Immediacy from the specific stony soil of Vaillons, unmistakable, of tang in impression and such a broad mouthfeel. The presence of Vaillons is nearly always noble, sumptuous, modish and sensual. Extract and tannin are very much a part of the program. Ten per cent of the take saw time in oak, lending an ingrained smack of spice. I would not exactly call it lavish though it is certainly a Vaillons surfeited with fruit, sun and stone. Drink 2017-2021. Tasted July 2016 @Matth_Mangenot#LongDepaquit

Cyril Testut’s Vaillons 2014 has just been two months in bottle so there is some inhibition, shocky reserve (though miles from reduction) and a certain force field guarding. Try as I might to crack the stony shell I am repeatedly faced with structure taut, tight, rigid and not yet open for business. There is orange blossom and other white florality waiting to bloom and of course so much mineral wanting to burst. Vaillons is yet another tart and wisely mature-directed Testut. It needs a year to open and solicit audience participation. Drink 2017-2021. Tasted July 2016 #DomaineTestut

In many ways a carbon copy of the superb 2012, herbal, sharp and as predicted, saline and piquant. Vaillons is a special parcel, a climat with such linear reality and basic, factual raison d’être.￼￼ The Kimmeridgian, calcareous clay and limestone is presented, discussed and celebrated for good reason because it makes for perfect conditions in Vaillons.
The 40-45 year-old Laroche parcel sucks it all in and don’t let anyone evince you away from or de-program you otherwise. Be the mineral. Vaillons of old vines (yes, they too work magic) that is precise, trenchant and miles beyond merely dependable. Treated to some battonage and very minimal oak. Examines the layered intensity of Laroche and the exceptionality of Vaillons. Tasted twice, at Domaine Laroche and at #i4c16. Drink 2018-2022. Tasted July 2016 @DomaineLaroche@SelectWinePros

Gorgeous and wealthy Chablis of all that makes this unparalleled style of Chardonnay tick. Flinty, struck stone entry, vineyard hyperbole of mineral and the geology of ancients. Lithe, lifted, lightness of being but always brought back down by the minerality. Some flavour density by way of old vines wisdom and persistence that just won’t stop going. Superb quality. Drink 2017-2022. Tasted January 2016 @DomaineLaroche@SelectWinePros

Vaillons is drawn from sub-appellative blocks in Les Epinottes and Roncières, with some vines as old as 65 years and yields quite low for where concentration trumps quantity. Very rich and concentrated is indeed the mode here, with good mineral bled from stone and very little in terms of sour or lactic edges. This is amenable Vaillons to be sure. A purity subsists and solicits simple and non-specific pairings, like Dorado, Sea Bass or Magret de Canard. There is this amazing salinity that hints at iodine, lemon and lime, but I would not call it salty. I would call it really refined Chablis. Drink 2017-2022. Tasted July 2016 @MoreauLouis1

Vaillons lies at the heart of the Domaine stylistic, from an entirely different sort of valley than Montmains but still facing southeast, certainly steeper (25 degrees) and early maturing. The three and a half hectares farmed in the Fèvre holdings are split into 10 plots and in 2014 picking was altered from the past 15 years’ norm, on and around the 20th of September. Adjudication through acumen deals a cooler 2014, of more herbiage, less piercing citrus and mineral but more pure fruit layers and also rounder for Chablis. There is more calm in these here Vaillons hills, despite or perhaps with thanks to the early picking. Later would have resulted in real winter fat. What ponder there is will step aside and the mineral will emerge up to and after five years. Drink 2018-2024. Tasted July 2016 @williamfevre_@WoodmanWS

Here Vaillons of breadth to speak on behalf of the whole cru and the cru as a whole. The layering of expected Vaillons flinty-smoky struck stone is toned down, elastic and a bit flat-lined. Texture is the key to a Vaillons heart in 2013, especially considering the automatic nature of the aromatics. Personality is subdued relative to other Fèvre Domaine crus but mineral concentration is still a vital thing. Check the palate and that texture to bring this quiet one to life and to find the nuggets of fruit treasure buried within. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted April 2015 @williamfevre_@WoodmanWS

Séchet

Séchet is a formidable climat at the head of the Vaillons slope near the town of Chablis and needs to be coddled or it can be one tough cookie. Romain Collet employs 30 per cent new oak in 2014, requisite because of and for the humanity of it all. To taste this in the summer of 2016 is to drive south to Beaune, with bits of nuts and pats of butter smearing the flinty fruit like a galette under a rich almond glaze. The mask is painted thick at present but structure makes for length and with acidity vibrant and variegated this Séchet will nigh carry its popcorn and vanilla all the way to the next decade bank. Drink 2018-2024. Tasted July 2016 #domainejeancollet

Beugnons

From the Beugnons parcel within the Vaillons, raised entirely in concrete egg, the third vintage as such, for micro-oxidation. Gently ushered along with a very light and slow batonnage. Perfumed like lemon in concrete (reminding me of Terra Alta’s Domaine Lafou garnaxta blanca, or vice versa) and luminescent like brilliant gemstone, rich but of such gorgeous control. The round acidity envelopes discernible fruit (it’s 2015 after all) and just a hint of spice. That said it is still found to be a bit closed down and minutely austere at this stage but age will not suffer as a result. Again the vintage is kept at bay with freshness and elongation. There were 2100 bottles made (as per the size of the egg). Drink 2017-2021. Tasted July 2016 @SebastienDampt@LesVieuxGarcons

Les Lys

An achievement in the richer style of Vaillons Premier Cru, broad and expansive, not entering the cortex with overarching acidity but rather good host invitation. A Bichot Burgundian stylistic really shows in Les Lys, not so much a wood attack but the lees and fullness is certainly felt. Acidity is late and round, encompassing and caressing. A softer 2014 and a good foil to other, sharper, more piercing brethren. Kept in 100 per cent stainless steel to preserve the acidity and the freshness. Even in 2014 this was necessary, for freshness and elegance. Certainly showing the most lifted and modern of the three Premier Cru on this day. Drink 2017-2020. Tasted July 2016 @Matth_Mangenot#LongDepaquit

La Chablisienne’s Les Lys from within Vaillons is codicillary to north by northwest exposure and later ripening. Flat out a wine of strength, urged linear and forward by high levels of kimmeridgian rock, inspiring and generating power and richness. The citrus here is so concentrated and also developed. Time stops and with great length there is just this. Les Lys. Drink 2018-2022. Tasted July 2016 #LaChablisienne@vbartement@Vinexxperts

Les Lys is perhaps the most particular, focused and pinpointed terroir of the Fèvre Domaine Premier Cru. Located in the Vaillons Valley as a sub-climat of the larger Vaillons, Les Lys is picked, vinified and bottled separately. Northeast facing, in many ways an antithesis and as what can be considered the antithetical Premier Cru, a place which doubles the richness coupled with the occupying, chalky minerality. Old vines of 50-65 years old are harnessed with and for their power, appearing but feigning boozy, thanks to very low yields and deep, concentrated phenolic development. An intense expression that is magnified by the portents of classic and structured 2014. Not quite British psychdelia but here Chablis is intoxicating, tracing circles around my head. “Time will tell if I’ll take the homeward track. Dizziness will make my feet walk back.” Always back to Les Lys. Drink 2017-2024. Tasted July 2016 @williamfevre_@WoodmanWS

Les Lys from within the Vaillons swims with liquid calcaire running through its interpolated climat veins and oozing from its extramural pores. It is a wine possessive of a seamlessness of chalky liquidity secreting in endless oscillations. Warmer than expected or perhaps within well-reasoned sensibility for the odd vintage, compounded by more savour and evergreen sensitivity. The Fèvre treatment of Les Lys in 2013 elevates above most others, then deals in longevity and perpetuity. Its piercing fruit-mineral skewer neither pokes nor scores. It simply permeates with fineness and appeal. Drink 2016-2020. Tasted April 2015 @williamfevre_@WoodmanWS

Les Minots

Patrick Piuze likes this single-parcel of 75 year-old vines in the warmest spot on Vaillons. He likes it a lot. The way he picks and vinifies turns over, inside and out the highest acidity and alcohol but it’s really a matter of place. This Vaillons is a striking wine, “Le Petit,” as he likes to call it and of the most wondrous mouthfeel. This from what Piuze likens as “the resto vintage,” so imagine the possibilities, the flinty, smoky, steely and cracking results that will come from true-blue, platinum, gemstone and ancient sea creature portended vintages. Drink 2018-2025. Tasted at the domain with Patrick Piuze, July 2016 @patrickpiuze@LaCelesteLevure@LiffordON

Les Roncières

Piuze’s first attempt at tendering Les Roncières is here in this first edition ’15 from the single-plot, sub-climat inside Vaillons. You can’t help but sense the Dauvissat approach in Patrick’s take on Roncières with the conscious (or unconscious) allowance for the block within the block specific perfume. The stoic and quiet confidence of fruit submissive to mineral presentation points not to obviousness but to the basic tenets of smoke, flint and shell, Together they hover in the proverbial air. But Piuze’s Roncières walks a more direct line and of all his lieu-dit or Premier Cru ’15’s, it seems more akin to a vintage like ’14. This is because in mouthfeel it comes across as lean, but only in comparison to the rest of ’15. This is the one to really wait on and seek more time-rendered flesh. Drink 2018-2025. Tasted July 2016 @patrickpiuze@LaCelesteLevure@LiffordON

Côte De Léchet

Côte De Léchet

It suffices to say that Domaine Barat’s prized terroir is this Left Bank Côte De Léchet. Their work with Right Bank plots in Fourneaux and Mont de Milieu is very good but it is here that they truly jibe and harmonize with the mise en scène of the kimmeridgian. A classic climat base wine, you note the pithy-leesy sense of washed rind cheese, the Barat richesse and spiced lemon palate. Concentrated and length-worthy, exceptional as oyster shell brittle speckled in its character. With 2016 qualified by Ludovic Barat as “une année très compliquée,” a once in a generation “catastrophe climatique,” this C de L is made all that much more important. The unprecedented combinative accumulation of hail, rain, frost, more hail and mildew in 2016 is unprecedented. With Barat’s excellent 2015 we’ll be able to say, “we’ll always have Côte De Léchet.” Drink 2017-2021. Tasted at the domain with Angèle and Ludovic Barat, July 2016 #domainebarat

L’Umami is an extraordinary concept within (or without) the exclusivity of Chablis Premier Cru, a first picked, top of the plot from 90 year-old vines, separately vinified cuvée. It was a difficult harvest up at the helm of the Côte De Léchet and Ludovic Barat took this cogent fruit and laid it down in only stainless steel for 18 months. No oak, old or new, only metal on metal, mineral in mineral, stone vs. stone. You receive the most indeterminate if excellent experience that Chablis can gift but you can and will not be able to put your pointed finger squarely upon it. Thus the moniker, L’Umami. This is indeed a deferential outlook and flavour experience, a new and unreal, yet conversely experiential dive into the savoury and the mineral. The closest analogy I can make is like catching the melted drippings of limoncello granita, slightly boozy, wild and citrus musky. Few Premier Cru tastings come up so singular as this. Drink 2017-2022. Tasted July 2016 #domainebarat

Interestingly enough that like the Beugnons this is also a bit closed at this time so again, despite the forward vintage, age for this Côte De Léchet will be aided. Richer though and fuller than the Beugnons, from a southern exposure but with high kimmeridgian and portlandian minerality. The wood is full on at this stage, not with spice like the Vaillons but with pith, kernel and then, coming up behind, drupe. While Sébastien’s 2014 might have reminded of say, a Jean Boxler (Alsace) sentiment in a chardonnay of precision and clarity, the ’15 can’t help but put a little unction at the junction of saline, mineral Chablis, as is his style and want. His 2014 just exaggerated this and ’15 does so with another shot of Dampt tonic. Really direct, inward vacuum of mouth watering and citrus expressing chardonnay. Drink 2017-2022. Tasted July 2016 @SebastienDampt@LesVieuxGarcons

Dampt’s small “parcelle cinquantenaire” fortuitously facing southeast looks to higher pastures and reeks of greatness. From the terroir with the grand lookout and great kimmeridgian rocks comes this Premier Cru secretly blessed with an unknown umami factor specific to the Côte De Léchet. There are things about Chablis you can’t know or consciously discern from this but what you do puts you under spell, hypnotized and alert by fruit digging for mineral, driven into the earth. This C de L is what Sébastien concedes as being “hors normes,” non-standard Chablis concentrated from an ancient place. There is no oak, only Inox, a choice clear and necessary. What a piece of work this take on Côte De Léchet is and under the microscope of a precise and linear vintage. Classique. Drink 2018-2024. Tasted July 2016 @SebastienDampt@LesVieuxGarcons

Pleasure is always derived from Chablis off the prized Left Bank terroir with an ideal fan of slope and exposure and a perfect view across the Serein to the Grand Cru. La Chablisienne’s Côte De Léchet offers up a classic mineral nose with a bit of youthful SO2, taking account of its southwest exposure and carefully combing its calcaire-kimmeridgian soils for a very directed expression. Really works the specific climat for what is a cumulative expression of all around success. This is a broad and thoughtful Côte De Léchet, nothing unexpected and yet with everything gained. Drink 2017-2021. Tasted at the domaine with Vincent Bartement, July 2016 #LaChablisienne@vbartement@Vinexxperts

In La Manufacture’s 2014 there is a Léchet lightness of Chablis being with lift from the limestone and it’s like an appetizer or apéritif to gain entry into Premier Cru Chablis. Crisp, tart and delicate. Some spice lifts even higher but the youth is really a talking point. Exceptional minerality gained from 2014 is used to explain what that is. A minor youthful reduction will need six to 12 months to dissipate but this will assist in the aging process. Drink 2018-2022. Tasted July 2016 @BenjaminLAROCHE@StemWineGroup

Tremblay’s handling tends towards the leesy side and aids in the promotion of that Lechet fromage and its ancient sea-salinity, crustaceous behaviour. In fact this level of marine salty is more intense than most and doubles down with elasticity and stretched length. Far from contemplative, Tremblay’s C de L is indicative of the linear, direct and precise house style. Drink 2016-2020. Tasted July 2016 #DomaineGerardTremblay

This is a striking Chablis, drawn out of an atypical vintage and from the venerable Côte de Léchet Premier Cru, an angled Left Bank climat of necessitous Kimmerridgian soil. The rocks there may be my most favourite, craggy, ash blond chunks replete with ancient sea creatures embedded in the golden stratum. This teases with the gaseous and aerified aspects of the oxidative-evolved vintage but the picking and the treatment here are spot on and just in time, because just a day or two later and too stark would have been the result. Terrific weight, pitch perfect acidity and a grazing, elongated finish. Top, top quality ’13 not to be missed. Drink 2016-2020. Tasted September 2016 @SimonnetFebvre@ImportWineMAFWM

From the Cru’s unparalleled southeast exposure on a 38 degree slope inlaid with kimmeridgian and white stone, the high salinity quotient and briny fossil/oyster shell is predictably omnipresent. Take a moment and smell the white flowers before giving back in to the stone and direct humming energy. Extreme this Mosier from low yields and tiny grapes, even for Côte De Léchet and covertly striking for 2013. One of the absolute best but and because it’s old school. In other words, not typical 2013. Taut freshness from antediluvian terroir is a beautiful thing. Last tasted July 2016 #sylvainmosnier

Classic Chablis from a very old vineyard (belonged to the Pontigny’s monk) with southeast exposure west of the town of Chablis and just above the small village of Milly. Mosnier’s parcel gifts delicate fruit, just so fortuitous in quantity and quality of lees overtures on stony lime-driven texture. Chardonnay in hands of terroir so flinty, lacy, organza fine. What more could be asked of for this next to nothing 1er Cru Chablis price? Drink 2017-2024. Tasted March 2016

Mosnier’s ’12 is a flinty, mineral, fruit smacked in the face Chablis from the exceptionally sea-fossil shell, stony-kimmeridgian Côte De Léchet. Soil and its tang-rocky impart doesn’t get any more obvious than here with bleeding rusty sea-nail salinity for chardonnay. Carries weight and density with a peach-pit tonic in its citrus-bent flavours. Very long and never relenting in its intensity. Drink 2016-2021. Tasted February 2015 #sylvainmosnier

Tasted with Julien Brocard at the domaine from a bottle produced under the auspices of the biodynamic range and wondering if this is the cause to view this as so very different than Vau de Vey. Here the exceptional Côte De Léchet kimmeridgian terroir is rendered deeper, almost brooding, but far from humid. There is lemon but it is a preserved and slightly pithy one. Rich and layered, a variegation on liquid stone and density. This really submerges into the sub-strata. The most contemplative Côte De Léchet yet. Drink 2016-2020. Tasted July 2016 @chablisbrocard@LiffordON

Vau De Vey

A compressed chardonnay that strikes as a passion play between herbs and limestone and no surprise that the spoils go to the latter. The citrus is gassy, rising, bathed in atmosphere. The structure is predicated on stone, rock and struck flint. Chablis of metal and essential minerality, discovered and defined. This slow-ripened chardonnay will evolve one year for every month contributed by its growing cycle. Drink 2016-2026. Tasted June 2016 @DomaineLaroche@SelectWinePros

Brocard’s Vau de Vey is a Left Banker that offers up a unique set of Chablis aromas, hard to pinpoint but recalling something akin to tubers sprinkled with rock salt. Even from the forward and sun-gifted 2015 vintage this is hard to tackle and there is some CO2 still working on the palate. Is expressive of dogged persistence, spirit and vitality. A very fresh Vau de Vey. From a very steep, east facing vineyard (nearly 50 per cent grade in spots), inviting and receptive to morning sun. Distilled down to the bare mineral essentials it is simply a wine that pops. Wait a year and drink it young while the ’14 continues to flesh and in lieu of the absence of ’16. Drink 2017-2020. Tasted July 2016 @chablisbrocard@LiffordON

The contrast is quite striking to 2012, two vintages so aligned and so very different. Here actually and surprisingly rich for a 2014 but essentially fresh and vital, as per the Vau de Vey locale, east facing, steep, always ready and sure to pop, like rocks on the gush of a geyser. Now settled past the once twitching phase, this has the surety of minerality from ancient kimmeridgian grants. A platinum VdeV with statuesque musculature. Long from head to toe. Personally speaking I’d wait two years for a further fleshing to ensue. Drink 2018-2022. Tasted July 2016 @chablisbrocard@LiffordON

Tasted with Julien Brocard from the biodynamic range, this Vaudevey (Brocard spelling, same, same) 2012 really is such an exceptional wine from an even more exceptional vintage. I write this with bias in a tasting that includes the ’14 and ’15 VdVs, so the viewpoint is at least obscured in part to the relative terms my current immersed opinion. Such texture, if only from an aromatic perspective, is estate defining, but it does not stop there. The palate brings such healthy phenolics and drive, purpose and this singular exceptionality of precision. The balance is impeccable and the tannin so fine. This will age for 10 years with love in kind and circumstance of the mind. The length slides in lingerings for miles and miles. Drink 2016-2025. Tasted July 2016 @chablisbrocard@LiffordON

Beauroy

While all the Chablis climats enjoyed an ideal growing season in 2014 I have to say that the Premier Cru Beauroy made full use of its gifts. The parcel lacks the striking mineral underfoot of close neighbours Côte de Léchet and Vaillons but what it does have is roundness and depth of fruit. In 2014 those aspects converge with the Chablis mineral ethos to paint a picture who’s whole is both the sum and the accumulation of its parts. Hamelin makes full advantage of fruit, rock and vintage. The triumvirate is saddled with ideal and ripe acidity an d the extract is second to none. A prime example and just about as good as it gets in the beautiful king’s climat. Drink 2016-2023. Tasted August 2016 #domainehamelin@oenophilia1

It is the deponent exhibition of Premier Cru Beauroy that La Manufacture creates the full-bodied cru, flirtatious, gregarious and giving. From what Benjamin Laroche describes as a “vraiment superb exposition,” Beauroy delivers so much lemon citrus of the preserved and pressed variety. It may not define calm, amenable and paradigmatic Chablis like Vau Ligneau but in other ways it is more than that. Ways that come from a need to flaunt and display. Such an interesting way with Beauroy. Drink 2016-2020. Tasted July 2016 @BenjaminLAROCHE@StemWineGroup

Tremblay’s is a Beauroy of salinity and beautiful brine, from a half hectare block, piercing if immediately gratifying Chablis. There are some underlying bitter notes (but good ones, like wasabi) but also necessarily and ultimately tart, smoky, flinty and compressed. Chablis in the mind of Beauroy as it surely once must have been, strayed from and has now made the traditional new once again. Drink 2017-2021. Tasted July 2016 #DomaineGerardTremblay

Beauroy is a south facing Premier Cru harvested earliest than most and also done so to preserve freshness, acidity and the most that can be gained from its subtle terroir. Fevre treats it with 15 per cent oak and the remainder goes into tank. Beauroy’s deference here is acquiescence, its character preserved, like lemon compressed in a jar or a curd slowly concentrated to the point of pure, glossy, silken texture. I find this typical of Fevre for 2014, consistent with the rich house style and yet may be the most elastic and restorative Premier Cru of the eight tasted. Impressive all around. Drink 2017-2021. Tasted July 2016 @williamfevre_@WoodmanWS

A best of both worlds kind of Premier Cru Chablis, this beautiful Beauroy, with a fleur de sel-floral feminine side like Les Lys and a white meat, white heat masculine calcaire drift like Montmains. The barrel begins to show, in as much as whatever the fruit is willing to relent and submit. Charges into another gear, where mineral is spoken as citrus. Not as refined as Les Lys and not as gritty as bigger Montmains (or as deep) but in Beauroy the twain is met. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted April 2015 @williamfevre_@WoodmanWS

Vau Ligneau

From the valley through the forest, Vau Ligneau is located parallel to Vau de Vey and is widely considered to possess a more favourable exposition. La Manufacture’s 2014 is all about freshness and elegance. “C’est Chablis,” says Benjamin Laroche with a wise and confident smile, followed by a knowing chuckle. Yes Mr. Laroche, this is Chablis. Direct, fresh, intense but somehow and needfully easy to understand and enjoy. Walks a straight citrus line and is very versatile. Near perfect because it can please just about every palate. Settle in and relish the definitive expression of Premier Cru Chablis and with Vau Ligneau there is no need for social media. Laroche does his very best here as a man of négoce, working with his growers. Now 2016 will be a difficult vintage, with at best 50 per cent of 5,000 hectares available and without any idea of quality or price. “It will be complicated in 2018” shrugs Laroche. Pack away this Vau Ligneau and make great use of its charms through 2018 and beyond. Drink 2017-2023. Tasted July 2016 @BenjaminLAROCHE@StemWineGroup

Vaulignot was created in 1976, one of the last Premier Crus to gain such status within the association. Note that Moreau’s nomenclature is Vaulignot instead of Vau Ligneau, but the meaning is exactly the same. Really round and rich Chablis with a relative and realistic purity specific to place. This alights as a sun-drenched and lemon waxy chardonnay with enough (thank you very much 2014) tension to keep it rolling right along. What Vaulignot brings to the Chablis table is stick to your tongue, mouth and ribs persistence and vitamin water mineral enhancement. In a way it is caught in the Chablis netherland between up front gregariously fruity and strikingly mineral/acidity piercing. Great length in this vintage. Drink 2016-2020. Tasted October 2016 @MoreauLouis1

Right Bank

Fourchaume

(Vaulorent)

As if handed off like a relay torch or baton from the Petit Chablis, the thread of elegance, purity and clarity continues in the Séguinot Bordet Chablis. Freshness floats in Chablis suspension, a liquid not so much viscous but one that acts as a cradling or a coddling. There is spice up on the aromatic front and it heads straight north to tease and tingle the olfactory senses. Deeper down it’s all inter-metallic compounds and alloys, a dimension that exists in a realm beyond chardonnay. Chablis. A circumambient capacity resistant to wood or nut but steals subtle aspects of both. Tasted with proprietor Jean-François Bordet in Auxerre he concludes, “my story is in memory.” Chablis by wrote. Drink 2016-2022. Tasted July and September 2016 @BordetJean@TheCaseForWine

“Are you a leftie or a righty” is the first question Jean-François Bordet asks at Niagara’s i4c Cool Chardonnay Chablis masterclass. He does so and then introduces his very own Right Bank, Premier Cru Fourchaume 2014. So I guess we know where he stands. His ’14 is clean, elegant and long. It is a nourishing mouthful of Chablis and markedly layered with tart compressions that really travel back on the the tongue and to the sides of the mouth. Séguinot Bordet’s Fourchaume could be labeled as L’Homme Mort, but it’s not. This top of the Right Bank hill, kimmeridgian limestone lieu-dit is known for classic minerality that somehow and impossibly does not translate as smoky or flinty. In the hands of J-F it most certainly transmits the rock but with flesh on that mineral bone. Drink 2017-2021. Tasted July 2016 @BordetJean@TheCaseForWine

Fourchaume by La Chablisienne stylistically shows how amazing it is that when you taste a Premier Cru that makes full breadth use of fruit from across the climats within a larger climat, you get such a full and rounded expression. This Chablisienne is a poster child for such a cuvée. In a way it so perfectly defines the largest of the Premier Cru because it is a melting pot for so many plots and blocks. It also employs more wood so here Chablis softens into the cream of crème anglaise, pretty, downy, like lemon chiffon. A generous, full and flat out feminine chardonnay of aggregated fruit to woo and court a decidedly English palate. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted July 2016 #LaChablisienne@vbartement@Vinexxperts

L’Homme-Mort is a block at middle slope adjacent to and counted as of the eight lieu-dits that make up the Fourchaume Premier Cru. To many hearts and minds, it is the best of them. The increased limestone presence is palpable on the Gautherons palate, after the latent aroma to atmosphere ubiety relented to that palate confident in retention of lemon and lime. L’Homme Mort is straight to the back of the mind direct, a Chablis recall to arms for the days of great acids. It will live long. Drink 2017-2022. Tasted July 2016 #gautheron@ProfileWineGrp

Taken specifically from a block in the Vaupulent lieu-dit at the southern end of the larger Fourchaume. The style is rich but with mineral in the air, ethereal and intoxicating. Fourchaume does not always get to such precise and hovering heights. This is typically 2014 and elevated by citrus with extreme prejudicial clarity. Right in the linear wheelhouse. Long floral, waxy citrus finish. Drink 2018-2023. Tasted July 2016 @Billaud_Simon

Fèvre from from the largest Premier Cru is Chablis of a double-edged dagger, Domaine versus Domaine, cru within cru. Fourchaume is split into five distinct climats and with Fèvre holding plots in Vaulorent, they bottle both a Fourchaume and a Vaulorent. This particular expression of Vaulorent is from three point six hectares split into eight plots. Located on the Grand Cru hill so texture here mimics (especially Les Preuses) with an extension to the northwest of the same exposure, compressing into marl and cut with kimmeridgian stone impression. This is intense, dramatic, rich and lengthy. The most opulence, perhaps in all of the ’14’s. All drama. Begs to be enjoyed. Drink 2016-2020. Tasted July 2016 @williamfevre_@WoodmanWS

Vincent Tremblay’s old vines Fourchaume was planted by his father Gérard’s father in 1951 smack dab in the middle of the Fourchaume. In the realm of Fouchaume this is stiff, right wing, reactionary stuff, bracing and complex. As intense in lemon acidity as any in the largest of the Right Bank Crus and very linear. Needs a couple of years to settle into its tough skin. Drink 2018-2022. Tasted July 2016 #DomaineGerardTremblay

Vaulorent

Patrick Piuze does not offer up any sort of dissertation on the larger Fourchaume in presenting his Vaulorent. He has moved on. “This climat is so focused,” he confirms. “The real Chablis.” In my estimation Vaulorent is the opposite of Fourchaume, of anti-blanketing fruit-mineral amenability, sharp, fixated, honed-in. Though Piuze readily admits this about Fourchaume. “Me, I don’t understand it.” So he traded in his larger Fourchaume fruit for the more parochial Vaulorent. What he’s really saying (or I am thinking) is that he’s relying on instinct and holistic navigation to grace Vaulorent with respect. In 2015 mission accomplished. Drink 2018-2025. Tasted July 2016 @patrickpiuze@LaCelesteLevure@LiffordON

Perhaps more than any of their Right Bank Premier Cru, the Vaulorent is rich, round, super-sized and yet conversely flinty, all in all a very full expression and so well rounded. The significance of southern exposure must sometimes be minimized for the sake of extolling the virtues of this Cru at the northern end of the Grand Cru vineyards, bordering the Grand Cru climats of Preuses and Bougros. It is so different and singular on its own, from fruit raised by one grower for Chablisienne in the best, west facing exposure. It is a complex and purposed Chablis, perhaps the most distinct of the Premier Crus, really stands out, is more saline (and of a specific salinity) that drives the true mineral of Chablis like no other. And the length is just outstanding. Drink 207-2024. Tasted July 2016 #LaChablisienne@vbartement@Vinexxperts

Benoît Droin’s Vaulorent is approached with the same precise parenting as his other Chablis but none take a shine to ubiquity as they do from this Right Bank radiant one. This brings all aspects of Chablis exceptionality into play; smoke, flint, acidity and compression. The wood does nothing to detract from the incandescence and the flashing of mineral glare and yet the moments of fullness offer calming junctures of textural relief. It can’t always be piercing and raging acids. Balance is blessed countenance in Droin’s Vaulorent. Drink 2018-2025. Tasted July 2016

Brocard’s Chablis Premier Cru Vaulorent is drawn off of the eastern section of the amphitheatre vineyard next to Les Preuses Grand Cru. Vaulorent is not just any other Right Bank climat and in ’14 graces with an inexorable tapestry of geology and micro-climate in conspiracy for a very special plot. It brings a mille-feuille unction of variegated richness and a level of extract to feign sweetness. Brocard’s Vaulorent expresses the vineyard as it should, to show its strength as one of the most impressive and impressing climats not considered or recognized as Grand Cru. So elegant and so very, very long. Drink 2018-2024. Tasted July 2016 @chablisbrocard@LiffordON

This second Fourchaume/Vaulorent from Fèvre completes the double-edged dagger investigation into a Domaine cru within a cru. Fourchaume the large and formidable Premier Cru is split into five distinct climats and Fèvre’s in Vaulorent provides the fruit for both the Fourchaume and this Vaulorent. The level of kimmerdigian mineral inflection is undeniably greater than in the grander Fourchaume ideal but whenever something is gained, something else is lost. Fruit suffering is a tragedy elsewhere in the chardonnay diaspora but in Chablis it is transformed into power, grace under pressure and ulterior elegance. That is this Vaulorent, especially in 2014. Here the ideals of presence, determination and persistence gather together. This is very adult Chablis, very serious and very young. It ranks with Montée De Tonnerre for sheer mineral guts if only missing just a Chapelot-like layer of richness. Drink 2019-2027. Tasted July 2016 @williamfevre_@WoodmanWS

Vaucopins

From Jean-Claude and Christiane and their small vineyard by the village of Chichée, just south of Chablis, their now winemaker daughter Nathalie’s take on Vaucopins is a pressing matter from hilltop, southern exposure and grand old vines (65 years) in the Premier Cru realm. The combination of natural fermentation and a year resting on lees brings a smoothness and a silky clean texture to mineral lacing. Certainly draws from and for more herbiage and a calmer, keener, settled sense of chardonnay. Not as striking as some others but conversely beautiful and serene. Drink 2017-2022. Tasted July 2016 #Oudin

Vaucopins is drawn off of five hectares on really steep slopes on the Right Bank. It is neither Les Lys nor Vaillons but somehow an across the river genetic and amalgamated combination of the two. Though there is a wild side to Vaucopins it really streams the vintage. Natural and corporeal because the fruit is untethered but habitual in that it mimics the Grand Cru. Its south-facing cragges and outcrops bring warmth to the kimmeridgian and that is why Matthieu Mangenot treats its élevage like a Grand Cru. The result is a very concentrated Chablis from 15 per cent (older Bichot barrels) oak fermentation. Drink 2018-2023. Tasted July 2016 @Matth_Mangenot#LongDepaquit

Les Fourneaux

Some reduction still persists in this summer of 2016, attributed to the handling and mineral-levitating intent to foil one of the warmest Right Bank Premier Crus of Chablis. And so the salinity is clearly specific to Fourneaux, compressed like bricks of ancient oceanic residue and slag. Makes for an intense expression, of tension and in solicitation of patience. The vintage must be called out for defining such an anti-ambagious line with the words and wisdom of the calcaire-argileux. Drink 2018-2024. Tasted July 2016 #domainebarat

From a Right Bank terroir near Fleys in relative Premier Cru isolation (although close enough to Mont de Milieu), Charly Nicolle’s ’14 cuts like a knife through the “furnace” that is Fourneaux. The laser edge of acidity slices through the rich fruit and only Nicolle’s handling finds this sort of linear work from a climat well-known for its warmth and roundness. Such a pure, distinct, precise and purposed impression is imprinted on a taster’s Chablis brain. Long is the understatement. This is trekking on a road to forever. Drink 2018-2024. Tasted July 2016 #charlynicolle

Mont de Milieu

From near and dear Premier Cru terroir a hop, skip and a rock slide away from the Grand Cru, the Garnier Mont de Milieu is charmingly larger (600L) barrel suave and soupy, more so and noticeable as deferential to many of its peers. A bit stoic and understated in the aromatic department and then linear, lean, unaggressive yet taut on the palate. Not the most corporeal M de M but then again that’s not necessarily the milieu. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted July 2016 @chablisgarnier

Billaud-Simon’s vines are up the hill in front of the forest, with four plots that work their way south and west and of parcels 40-70 years of age. This has such air and pomp in its deep breaths with the most maleficent acidity and tension in its grip. As stirring a Mont de Milieu as you will find built on 40 hL/H yields of solid citrus meets yellow apple fruit. Terrific attraction and length. Superb. Classic unoaked Chablis. Can envision it unchanging for seven years followed by a slow walk into and through the preserved citrus museum. With fruit this clean it will petrify before it spoils. Drink 2019-2027. Tasted July 2016 @Matth_Mangenot#LongDepaquit

Mont de Milieu crosses the river to rest in Domaine territory on the right bank, facing south, with 55 year-old plots and crazy low yields (20 hL/L). The vintage was better than many in much of Chablis but winemaker Didier Séguier is not sold on this Mont de Milieu. Though flowering was not top notch it was easily better than ’13. Well, hotter at least, as there were days at 42 degrees. Consider the anti-Chablis like funk in the lemon, some disproportion and oddly-pronounced variegation. Some kind of natural, free-flowing character is exhibited in this M de M and it most certainly is an outlier. Coming back down to earth and digging into the rocks the notes say the finish is direct, piercing and marked by compressed citrus. Very mineral, of course. The early variant personality is chalked up to youth and this is not the first Mont de Milieu that appeals to time and patience. It should be afforded some. Drink 2018-2024. Tasted July 2016 @williamfevre_@WoodmanWS

Mont de Milieu’s Right Bank, Grand Cru, Vaucopins and Montée de Tonnérre proximate locale is not lost on the excellence level of Chablisienne’s effort. Further endorsed by the ’14 vintage this M De M is cooler, specing-savoury, briny, crustaceous even. The southern exposure develops rich and ripe fruit and along with some SO2, here the bivalve shell mixed with ripeness means divaricated business. It’s the rock and the ancient, subterranean, mineral flow of the Serein’s Crioux tributary that give the shellac, the lustre, prolongation and appendix. The Mont de Milieu ’14 right here is the oyster wine. Make great use of this purpose for a decade or more. Drink 2018-2025. Tasted July 2016 #LaChablisienne@vbartement@Vinexxperts

In 2011 Charly Nicolle reintroduced wood into the family Chablis continuum with 400L first, second and third fill barrels employed for the Premier Cru. Old (55 year-old vines) in the Mont de Milieu produce a leaner wine indicative of the climat with a not so unexpected high mineral direct shot to the back off the brain. An eminent predominance of lemon and lime runs parlous by juice, zest and juice again. This is a laser M de M, even by the cru’s standards, an effect created by incredulous and concentrated calcareous activity. Drink 2017-2023. Tasted July 2016 #charlynicolle

If Les Fourneaux seemed a bit backward and intense then this Mont de Milieu is downright cast against a solid kimmeridgian wall. Yet another dynamite and sharply oblique Chablis from an even more striking mineral plot in the most arresting of vintages. Though the current disposition is a chassis carved in crustaceous stone the rewards will be borne out of perseverance. The sous-vide mineral soak and deep saline rub has brought about slow white caramelization and will eventually morph into stony, ecumenical goodness. Wait for it. Drink 2018-2025. Tasted July 2016 #domainebarat

You could not accuse this 2013 as being unprejudiced to vintage or unsectarian to climat. It is in fact typically 2013 with notes of mandarin orange, lychee and a texture more creamy than anything ’14 or ’15 in the Barat portfolio. It is also counter-intuitive to the Mont de Milieu milieu, waxy and honeyed, so more older Beaune meets sémillon than Chablis. The vintage has confused many a Premier Cru and this is not immune. That said there is no shortage of interest and perhaps even enthusiasm in the continuing investigation. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted July 2016 #domainebarat

Julien Brocard also pours this Mont de Milleu 2006 from magnum alongside the advanced Les Clos Grand Cru 2007. This only helps to accentuate a sense that the Premier Cru is quite youthful though the aromatics are imaginative of culinary gastronomy. From a warm year with low acidity, though slightly muddled the humidity here is comforting and blessed. A real pleasure to drink and were some scallops served alongside this would offer up a little slice of Brocard heaven. Drink 2016-2018. Tasted July 2016 @chablisbrocard@LiffordON

Montée De Tonnerre

Tasted at the domaine, from three parcels, Montée de Tonnerre, Pied d’aloup and Côte de Chapelot, climats up on the hill on the right bank close to the town of Chablis. Rounder (with 10 per cent old oak) than Mont de Milieu but still of terrific 2014 acidity, though noticeable with more orchard fruit to mingle with the stones. The tension increases with some time spent with the M de T and like well-structured Premier Cru Chablis will want to do, it lingers with a combination of tension and amenability. Part gentille Alouette and part Kimmeridgian flinty, this is a terrific example of the co-habitable duality of great Chablis. It is also indicative of the transformative restoration and direction of Billaud-Simon under the auspices of winemaker Olivier Bailly. I will let this bird rest for a couple more years and then a promise. “Je te plumerai.” Drink 2018-2025. Tasted July 2016 @Billaud_Simon

Montée De Tonnerre is deserving of its reputation and Fèvre is a large part of that classification. In the realm of the Domaine Premier Cru this is the most mineral (along with only one other, that being Vaulorent) and one of the most in Chablis. The two point two hectare site is gauged in three plots. The catalyst mineral bringer Pied d’Aloup sits at the top and faces east, Chapelot also faces east and offers up richness while Côte de Bréchain, planted in 1936 faces west and brings the acidity. It is in this amalgamation of prized terroirs where the persistence of ancient stone, pillars of vineyard, vine and Chablis climat are second to none. Incredible presence and ability, cauterized and accentuated by a vintage that ushers the stereotype, hyperbole and essential aspects of what it is to be called Chablis. Looking for a wine to explain why Chablis is not chardonnay? Look no further. Drink 2018-2025. Tasted July 2016 @williamfevre_@WoodmanWS

A profound sense of minerality is not merely felt but understood in Testut’s Montée De Tonnerre. The entire experience with this ’14 is precise, focused and linear. Few Chablis are ever this salty (it really is the most saline) and there is this lovely oyster shell brine. Intense even for what I may have come to expect from Montée De Tonnerre, here the stones, rocks and shells ride in on tides of salinity. And yet there is an underlying ripeness so Testut’s is less sour (and/or tart) then most others in the 2014 range. Great example. Drink 2018-2024. Tasted July 2016 #DomaineTestut

The giving vintage is most expressive in the hands of Louis Michel, brimming with and pushing the limits of the Cru’s available richness. Montée de Tonnerre is capable of but normally kept shy of such viscous, lemon-lime fleshy Chablis. Will pour this way for another two years before developing some recession and spare tire weight. Drink 2016-2018. Tasted July 2016

Montée de Tonnerre is a new négoce cuvée for Laroche, using fruit from some contact growers thus “Domaine” is not on the label. The entire allocation is aged in 55 hL foudres and there is certainly more oak influence in creamy texture than the rest of the Premier Cru, though there is no compromise because the salinity and acidity appear in droves. There is roundness within those contexts but because of the age potential of the vintage and the effect of a Chablis climat of such high esteem, patience is required. It is the passport to the MdeT’s future. A return sip 30 minutes later sees the wine open up a bit, the wood melting and softening, but still, structurally speaking so very tight and so, so long. Drink 2018-2022. Tasted July 2016 @DomaineLaroche@SelectWinePros

Just amazing pitch and imploding vitality from a climat that demands traditional winemaking (in 100 per cent old wood) so as not to detract from a classic flinty, steely Chablis direction. No bells and whistles, just rocks and stones and straight ahead chardonnay. Takes what the vintage gives and tackles the rest. Drink 2018-2024. Tasted August 2016 #domainejeancollet

Romain Collet sequesters 100 per cent old wood to gently coax the elegance out of the Montée De Tonnerre fruit, a task not readily or handily achieved in the most atypical and topsy-turvy 2013 vintage. At the few shakes under three year mark the expression acts typically citrus preserve zesty but the mouthfeel, texture and application are substantive, leaning to tropical. There is no breach so the wine remains in the proper sous-vide, subterranean mineral realm, with thanks to an early pick. Tart and tang layer with slow-developed, old wood spice. Quite lovely and emblematic of the storied cru for short term consumption. Drink 2016-2018. Tasted at the domain with Romain Collet, July 2016 #domainejeancollet

Collet’s Montée De Tonnerre 2011 shifts forward and top heavy with good upfront fruit, namely green apple and a quarried road of verdant, emerald green, gemstone minerality. The middle ground is quite wispy, ethereal, misty and then grounded by the sort of tang only a moderate to generous percentage of Premier Cru rendered barrel can do. Lime peel and a linear extreme of acidity takes this M de T places, into an integrated summons for age ability. Drink 2016-2022. Tasted February 2015 #domainejeancollet

When you look at it in the most base and simple way Chablis is one thing. Like having a surname taken from the family’s ancestral village. The name connotes the surrounding wine-growing area and the town at its epicentre. It speaks to a community as a sub-regional district of Burgundy and it lends nomenclature to the all-in, mono-varietal entity. Though divided into four sub-appellations; Petit Chablis, Chablis, Chablis Premier Cru and Chablis Grand Cru, Chablis is chardonnay and it is a place of one terroir.

Is it really? Chablis is chardonnay for varietal purposes but only that links it to other chardonnay. Chablis is more than chardonnay, not existential as chardonnay and if you ask wiser men than me, is not chardonnay. So what ties it together? What commonality beyond grape variety is shared by the quaternate appellations of Chablis? Soil.

Soil in Chablis is defined by a widely accepted generalization. “The Kimmeridgian is a geological age in the Upper Jurassic epoch, around 150 million years ago. In Chablis, one finds subsoils of gray marl which alternate with bands of limestone, sometimes very rich in fossils of Exogyra virgula, a small, comma-shaped oyster that is characteristic of the marl from the Middle and Upper Kimmeridgian.” The eminence and éclat of terroir rises through the increasingly beneficial levels of Oxfordian, Portlandian and into Kimmeridgian. Petite Chablis, Chablis, Cru/Climat.

There is little about Chablis that is not drawn up in contrasts. It begins with Left Bank versus Right Bank, the Serein River and the village of Chablis acting as the interface between. Petit Chablis giving way to the more important Chablis and then Premier Cru the varied and always impressive interloper separating the villages wines from the Grand Cru. Chablis as a varietal concept, as opposed to and unlike anywhere else in the world, seemingly unrelated to chardonnay.

My first piece centred on the history and future of greatness in Chablis. I made this bold statement about (seventh generation Chablis winemaker) Edouard Vocoret and (Greek-German) Eleni Theodoropoulos. “I have met and tasted the future of Chablis and its name is Edouard Vocoret and Eleni Theodoropoulos.” They carry a torch lit by producers like Vincent Dauvissat. The musicality of his wines are self-conscious without being self-regarding. Their aromas, flavours and textures tend to themselves, to Chablis and to the world at large. Please welcome Edouard and Eleni to this stage.

While in Chablis I came face to grace with the monopole ideal from one grower who glides ethereal in her freedom from appellative constraints. The rows outside the 11th-12th century monk’s wall demarcate Le Clos de Béru Vineyard. All of Athénaïs de Béru’s wines are single-vineyard Chablis save for the Terroir de Beru, a wine that gathers all the vineyards to express the all-encompassing Béru terroir. Béru. The Left Bank domaine farmed by Athénaïs de Béru, organically, biodynamically and spiritually. Chablis from the tree of life.

Last week I wrote a Chablis piece that focused on the wines of Quebec native Patrick Piuze. It was in July of 2008 that Piuze made the decision to go solo and start his own winery. While he may not be a wine grower, he is an accomplished and respected winemaker. He may not own his vineyards but it took him little time to forge cultivated and solicitous relationships with farmers in Chablis. The twenty-five tasting notes were posted to open a window into the portal of Patrick Piuze in Chablis.

My reviews for Premier Cru and Grand Cru will follow this post. Including the week I spent tasting in Chablis and in the six months since I have written 73 tasting notes for wines that do not fall under the auspices of the (47 Premier and Grand Cru) climats; 20 for Petit Chablis, 47 on Chablis and nine dug into more depth in Chablis Vieilles Vignes. It should be noted that many of these wines are in fact a product of specific lieu-dits, “an area of land whose name recalls a particularity that is usually topographical or historical.” While these wines are not considered to be first or second tier Chablis, they are great and specific expressions of Chablis terroir. And so it took 6,000-plus words to get these reviews finished. Please enjoy the brevity of the overall account.

Petit Chablis

In warmer draw and major tones the plot of La Chapelle-Vaupelteigne provides balm and herbiage and a minor more towards weight and oxidation. In spite of this unction and embrocation there remains and persists the necessary citrus and smoky flint. What this Petit Chablis from Guy et Olivier surrenders to creamy, micro-oxygenated texture it proffers and scraps in the name of complexity. Petit Chablis in a singular class. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted July 2016 @lesvinsdupre

Angèle Barat says this about making Petit Chablis. “You don’t abuse.” From calcareous soil on the Beine plateau, the Barat Padabu is what you might call a perfect gougeres white. It is Petit Chablis as it is meant to be; pure, basic, unctuous, unadulterated juice with the slightest mineral hint. Nothing more. nothing less. Drink 2016-2017. Tasted July 2016 #domainebarat

Well of course the difference is felt immediately, in simpler terms, affordably easy, accountable, preferential to commercial success. Acidity is prepared with necessary balance in advance of letting fruit run wild. This is waxy and pleasantly sour. A bit chewy as well. Nicely done. Classic unbaked chardonnay in every correct way. Drink 2016-2017. Tasted July 2016 @Billaud_Simon

He waits until we have traveled through a full tasting of Chablis, Premier Cru and Grand Cru, but then Julien Brocard is more than pleased to introduce his biodynamic range. It begins with Petit Chablis Les Plantes 2014, the stepping stone into how and why we are to understand why Julien brought this approach to the estate. “His witchcraft,” as he puts it, for healthy vines, wines and lifestyle. What it brings to Petit Chablis is a true purpose, in aridity, from mineral salinity and for affinity to wine sustaining infinity. It is too early to know how biodynamics will lead to commercial successes and here the best is not yet avowed, even in the great vintage because the maker knows not yet what it is he’s got. Drink 2016-2018. Tasted July 2016 @chablisbrocard@LiffordON

Pas si Petit translates to “not so small,” as much a request to not take things so literally as it is a service of notice as to the style of Chablisienne’s Petit Chablis. It is in fact quite a rounded PC, an all-encompassing, tie in multi-soil aspects in one big cuveé. It’s not so petite, something easily attributed to five to six months aging on the lees, all in tank. The simple and highly effective entry point teaches and receives with the Pas si Petit. Petit Chablis for all and for everyone to enter the omniscient domain of Chablis. Curiosity, legwork, hooked. Drink 2016-2018. Tasted at the domaine with Vincent Bartement, July 2016. #LaChablisienne@vbartement@Vinexxperts

From estate vineyards and the entry point into the time-honoured Collet style, the Petit Chablis is seamless, steely, 100 per cent stainless steel raised bottled vigour. The sprite and tart are appetite whetting with balm and backbite, without strings. A chill $15 white, simple, crushable. Drink 2016-2017 #domainejeancollet

Sébastien Dampt’s is in fact comunicado to the Milly terroir, a Petit Chablis of a singular matter that clearly speaks of its home connection. Comparisons escape me what with such physically held by force, dire straits, desperate compression of tang, mineral and variegation, virtually unheard of for the genre. From plots between four and five hectares in breadth, T de M holds the kind of citrus that is like a slice of dense cake yet somehow airy and filled with delight. “Communication, Communiqué, Communiqué.” A huge success for the vintage. Drink 2016-2020. Tasted at the domain with Sébastien Dampt, July 2016 @SebastienDampt@LesVieuxGarcons

From a single portlandian (0.16 hectare) plot of Petit Chablis at Milly, on the plateau of the Chappelle Vaupelteigne. Chablis of the sort of portandia to enhearten and portend extreme unction, brighten and embolden as flinty as any calcaire can. In a five PC flight strike me down if he isn’t the most intense and straight up citrus example. Young Chablis of la concentration extraordinaire. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted July 2016 @JeanDauvissat

Fèvre’s Petit Chablis is fashioned from very old grower’s contracts, established once upon a time by William, still concurrent and contiguous into the present tense accumulation of 200,000 bottles. Classic PC, fresh, elegant, inwardly tart and specifically mineral. Be still its crunchy texture with a soft organza underlay in the guise of a bed of herbs. The farmer’s commitments have been kept specificaly for this purpose, to build the bridge and create a gateway to Chablis. Drink 2016-2018. Tasted July 2016 @williamfevre_@WoodmanWS

Somewhat rich and unexpectedly expressive for Petit Chablis with a juniper and tonic note at the finish. Getable as per the vintage and no surprise at that while at the same time offering up quite a bit of texture and richness for the category. Nettles at the end are hard to forget. Drink 2016-2018. Tasted January 2017 #AlainGeoffroy

Hamelin’s Petit Chablis hails from the clay soil plateau on the domain’s situation at Lignorelles, co-mingling in soil with distinct out-country lying kimmeridgian. Hamelin’s is quite a fuller expression with more mineral and that green glade sort of brightness. It climbs into a lime and metal feel though there is not as much acidity or at least a very different kind than some others in a large flight. Very representative of the modern oeuvre. Drink 2016-2018. Tasted July 2016 #domainehamelin@oenophilia1

At the age of 40 Benjamin Laroche decided to got it alone. The native of Chablis and his family have farmed vineyards here since 1663 and Laroche now produces solely as a négoce, working with eight growers. 2013 for Petit Chablis and Chablis and 2012 for Premier Cru and Grand Cru were his first vintages. L’Atelier Petit Chablis is drawn from near the village of Beine, a place “tres solaire.” His rendition of the portal opening chardonnay is an aperitif of a Petit Chablis, crisp but rich and broad, able to serve one and all. Drink 2016-2018. Tasted July 2016 @BenjaminLAROCHE@StemWineGroup

La Manufacture’s Petit Chablis is an entirely separate entity from L’atelier, as the two lines each only come from one estate. There is no blending. Here the vintage speaks in the way 2015 is simply unable to, with a salinity in and out of mineral, with and without weight and strings. Very precise, straight to the point and for Petit Chablis, quite laser dramatic. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted July 2016 @BenjaminLAROCHE@StemWineGroup

You can put your money down on a Moreau Petit Chablis, never taken for granted and from some of the best PC-designate spots around Chablis. Moreau’s vineyards are located in the village of Beine on the Left Bank. The fruit and acidity from fresh, juicy and rich 2015 are nicely delineated, all moving parts forwardly aromatic led with white flower essence and the texture is free and easy on the palate. Very clean and pure Petite Chablis from the most consumer-friendly vintage. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted at the domaine with Frédérique Chamoy, July 2016 @MoreauLouis1

Chablis as it was, should be and where it will go. Lucie Thieblemont and Charly Nicolle #vigneron & #negociant #fleys #chablis Attention @nicholaspearcewines just sayin’

Charly Nicolle from Fleys is the sister property to the Nicolle-Laroche family’s Domaine de la Mandelière. In a good year Charly produces 75,000 bottles per year. His ’15 Petit Chablis is crisp and bound of full compages, tightly wound and textured. There is certainly some lees felt swimming in the vintage-generated saporous acidity. A ripe example of sun expressive Petit Chablis. Drink 2016-2018. Tasted July 2016 #charlynicolle

From the area of Beine comes this clean, fresh and lemon striking Petit Chablis. So very lemon specific within a broader citrus spectrum but no flint. Its freshness is of white flowers in the hawthorne to acacia field, a saline note of iodine and plenty of round acidity. So very lemon squeezed. Less multi-dimensional on account of that specific replay. Drink 2016-2017. Tasted July 2016

From the “restaurant vintage,” like 2009 notes Patrick Piuze and a Petit Chablis more specific and focused than most, if perhaps all. A single-vineyard, lieu-dit PC, “Le Petit Preuses,” right banked and rubbing shoulders with the Grand Cru. Always on the plateau of Portlandia soil. Fine spark of Petit Chablis, like a lime cordial spiked by salinity and welling in concentration. Drink 2016-2020. Tasted July 2016 @patrickpiuze@LaCelesteLevure@LiffordON

La Cuvée Sycomore comes from “Sur les Clos,” a warm and windy 1.4 hectare plot on a well exposed plateau of pebble infested, lean and infertile soil. The 2014 challenges the most typical of vintages with pure driven citrus and acidity through the roof. A direct, defined, determined expression of chardonnay. Drink 2016-2018 #LCPoitout

Four hundred and twenty five years later the family produces their 2015 Petite Chablis, as with the rest of the region, as an archway into the domain and for all else to follow. It isn’t the most riveting vintage but this is made in the pure, elegant style that carries easy alcohol and essential extract in the vein of any or all mineral-driven whites. A worldwide list that includes chenin blanc, assyrtiko and trebbiano, among others. Here the fat of ’15 is staved off, with freshness and Portlandian salinity, like a syrup mixed into clay that dissolves and resolves. Drink 2016-2018. Tasted July 2016 @BordetJean@TheCaseForWine

From trenchant vines on Portlandian soil, Tremblay’s is really rich and textured Petit Chablis reading a parable of aromatic mineral density. The providence of the salinity means that it aspires and then resides in a rare card-carrying category of weight and structure. Way more structure for PC than most others. Chablis here directs the idea of the commercial vintage, again, rich, broad and even a bit spicy. At the end of the day it will always correctly offer up broad appeal. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted at the domain with Vincent Tremblay, July 2016 #DomaineGerardTremblay

Chablis

The first Chablis of hundreds tasted in the first week of July with a perfume of acacia flowers and the honey they might invade, the generosity and gregariousness in Barat’s Chablis is really something other. Extreme ripeness from the commercially viable vintage sits with quite the spice on the phenolic ripe end of the wide-ranging spectrum. Chablis at the meridian of texture and jolie. Drink 2016-2018. Tasted July 2016 #domainebarat

From the area of Lignorelles, Beaufumé’s Chablis is creamier on the nose than many counterparts and then thins with direct tart, ripe and ripping acidity. Wow acidity, tight and bracing. Though the spectrum of orchard, stone and even tropical white and yellow fleshed fruits are hinted at they collectively succumb to the nicely smoked stick, flint, kernel and nut. A broader if at times confusing expression of Chablis that is more than fun to taste. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted July 2016

Tasted with winemaker Matthieu Mangenot at the Long-Depaquit domain, this is Chablis raised 100 per cent in stainless steel. Gifts the immediacy of mineral and acidity, from Chichée to the south of Chablis and also the eastern areas of Beru and Viviers. Higher altitudes where snow and then frost at the end of April 2016 will mean a tiny harvest but for 2015 the acidity is top-notch, despite the fat and easy vintage, with more mineral driven into the palate (with some perceived though feigning sweetness) and a real gelid glide down the backside. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted July 2016 @Matth_Mangenot@Bichotwine@DionysusWines#LongDepaquit

Nicely crisp Chablis for the vintage, a bit lean and direct but with ripe acidity and balance struck. Straight to the Chablis point, with more lime than lemon and a minor bitter middle, ending with easy leaning angles. Commendable from dependable for 2015. Drink 2016-2018. Tasted July 2016 @Billaud_Simon

The nearing on 1000 year-old abbey of Saint Claire rests a stone’s throw from Brocard’s front doors and blends into the vast plane of the landscape with a whisper. The Chablis in its (or his) honour also rests, but in large foudres, lending a rich edging to fruit from a knowingly fat year, but the welcome salinity is the balancer. Really high salty-mineral content perpetuates the importance of this cuveé from vintage to vintage, from organic vineyards, in the typical Brocard style, fleshy and generous. Drink 2016-2018. Tasted July 2016 @chablisbrocard@LiffordON

In a year for acidity and total, utter freshness the Saint Claire rushes and wells with excitement. Beautifully green apple tart and crunchy. The saline temperature is measured in an ooze running through and with the lees. Cracker vintage keeps the deep salinity intense, vital, searing and so naked to the world. Pure Chablis with length that stretches away from richness and into a lean lingering. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted twice, July 2016 @chablisbrocard@LiffordON

Due to its ulterior and antithetical Chablis nature it just seems right to refer to this non-sulphured wine as chardonnay. From Julien Brocard’s recently formulated biodynamic range it is full of poise as are all of his biodynamic wines that seem to have found such confidence in their distinct natural niche. This is raised in ovoid Austrian foudres and what gains is a density of supple, sour tang, noted mostly in texture. The hyperbole is of saline meets brine for Chablis. There is certainly a Fino, green olive liqueur sensation about it, which is just dry and admittedly, quite beautiful. As a result this oxidative take on Chablis should age for an extra year or two. Drink 2016-2020. Tasted July 2016 @chablisbrocard@LiffordON

This is from what Julien Brocard considers an atypical vintage, ripe, but “not a Chablis style year and so you must take what the vintage gives.” Brocard does feel the biodynamic approach has presented a more balanced year for the vineyard and I note a certainly affinity with the 13’s tasted with Patrick Piuze, from which aromatics airy and atmospheric in their confused moments recall riesling and here, chenin blanc. Quite a tropical, atypical Chablis nose, with mango and apricot, but also a deep soil tang. The most mineral-tropical fruit dichotomy of all, from 2013, unique and deferential to the last decade plus of Chablis. Drink 2016-2018. Tasted July 2016 @chablisbrocard@LiffordON

La Pierrelee is one of three Chablisienne Chablis cuveés, subjected to 14 months élevage and carries more than a strong sense of perceived leesy sweetness in surround of a good mineral core. It may be the house’s fullest, roundest and most well-rounded expression. The fruit is gathered from all over Chablis, off of 20 communes and so is a true assemblage. The length is preeminently good. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted at the domaine with Vincent Bartement, July 2016 #LaChablisienne@vbartement@Vinexxperts

La Sereine is a cuvée that follows the river, finds a river, mimics the ebb and flow of the river. A cuvée “of river poet search naïveté,” as important as Les Vénérables and the one that sparks a twinkle in Vincent Bartement’s eye. Same élevage as Vénérables and Pierrelee so the aromatic sweetness repeats albeit with leaner structure. Here more classically Chablis mineral, a direct deposit tip of liquid platinum calcaire into the glass. La Sereine snaps crisp with some bite and of savoury piquancy as well. It’s the lean and mean, rapid eye movement fighting machine of local and exotic perfume, “of ginger, lemon, indigo, coriander stem and rows of hay.” In La Sereine we find a river, constant, in which “strength and courage overrides.” Drink 2016-2021. Tasted at the domain with Vincent Bartement, July 2016 #LaChablisienne@vbartement@Vinexxperts

Dame Nature is drawn off organic vineyards, mostly from southerly Courgis with some fruit near Fleys. Same faux sugary aromatic vein, lees affected and yet here, so flirtatious, pretty, feminine. Soft, downy, French cream Chablis. A bit of a Brie fromage note but then lemon piercing on the palate. The palate is all Chablis mineral tart and direct. Interesting mix of style in the Dame Nature, “like I wouldn’t know it’s you. At your most beautiful. Chablis of “a way to make you smile.” Drink 2016-2019. Tasted at the domain with Vincent Bartement, July 2016 #LaChablisienne@vbartement@Vinexxperts

Dampt’s Chablis Villages is consistently formulated as the same blend, but this is a second bottling post 12 leesy months. Young vines 10 years of age planted by Sébastien are encouraged and mentored by some old vines (40-45 years) blended in. All the fruit hails from the commune of Milly. Here again, rich and with some wood influence, in the vein of other like-minded progressive Chablis producers (Charly Nicolle comes to mind), but still very Chablis, expressive without bâtonnage. Still the acidity and minerality but the dry extract leads to unction. This is the young, new generation changing Chablis without forgetting where it comes from. With thanks to a golden terroir. Drink 2016-2020. Tasted at the domain with Sébastien Dampt, July 2016 @SebastienDampt@LesVieuxGarcons

The Collet Chablis is a 15 hectare blend from Villy (coming from Romain Collet’s mother’s side of the family) located between Vaillons and Montmains, plus fruit from near Courgis and Préhy. Classically 100 per cent stainless steel styled for sharp, pointed, piquant and straight ahead Chablis. A purchase at 10 euros right off the shelves at the winery shop in Chablis is a perfect bit of thievery. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted July 2016 #domainejeancollet

It was 30 years ago that Agnès et Didier Dauvissat planted their vines in Beine and today they make but three cuvées; this Petit Chablis, Chablis and Premier Cru Beauroy. This telescoped sense of purpose has obviously served the two well. Here in the cracker 2014 vintage they have arguably produced one of the finest (basic) Chablis. The concentrated lemon preserve, firm structure and rapt calcaire tart collation is eye-popping and mind-opening. Prescient from exceptional length, agreeably and markedly purposed. Top, top Chablis. Drink 2017-2020. Tasted July 2016 @DauvissatBeine

The Champs Royaux is Chablis drawn from a selection of Fèvre’s better grower contracts and five to 10 per cent is aged in old oak, the rest in stainless steel. It is a generalized but oh too important expression from kimmeridgian soil, hedged and qualified from all over Chablis. Takes all the hills, valleys, les clos and slope/aspect dimensions into account. It is textbook Chablis, a guarantee of quality, especially out of the cracker 2014 vintage. The fruit is ripe and the acidity a study in Chablis exactitude. The balance may be the best this cuvée has ever shown. Drink 2016-2020. Tasted July 2016 @williamfevre_@WoodmanWS

The Domaine (estate) Chablis are vineyards located next to the Premier and Grand Cru, organically-farmed since 2006 (though not certified) and hand-harvested. Some vines date back 50-60 years and perhaps it is this wisdom and tree-rings concentration that gives this Chablis its hidden quality, dormant gem of mineral, quietness, stoicism, and reserve. Seemingly lean but ready to burst. An elegance that is a step up from the Champs Royaux though not as fully blanketed in obvious expression as the Premier Cru. And yet the bridge is built, ready to cross over, from one bank to another. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted July 2016 @williamfevre_@WoodmanWS

Domaine Céline & Frédéric Gueguen is located in Prehy between les Vallées des Joeges et Plantes. The terroir is one of the furthest south in Chablis (and not far from Jean-Marc Brocard). This bottle is the first to be marked by some dusty and musty notes with little citrus on the nose. Acts as the leanest, most direct expression thus far. Really lean though with acidity not as pronounced. Seems to come off of an austere, aggressive terroir. Drink 2016-2017. Tasted July 2016 @ChablisGueguen

Straight ahead and 2014 focused Chablis from Jadot, tight and stony at first but then shimmies up to reveal richer fruit than some and equanimity in acidity-mineral undertones. A wide and all-encompassing no doubter of a wine that succeeds no matter the breadth of its fruit sourcing. Classy all the way. Drink 2016-2020. Tasted September 2016 @ljadot@HalpernWine

The vintage is a ripe, accessible and easy to love one so this marks a 90 degree turn for the Saint Martin. This is Laroche’s most important cuvée, sold in 80 countries and collected from select plots across 60 hectares of vines. Structure will always direct this cuvée and so long as Gregory Viennois is winemaker you can be sure that a taut entry will be joined by some subtle oak richness (in 2015, eight per cent in large, 25 year-old, 55 hL foudres). It’s just an aromatic hint but look forward with eyes closed and inculcate the texture addendum. Acids are soft and caressing. Drink 2017-2021. Tasted July 2016 @DomaineLaroche@SelectWinePros@Select_Wines

An all plots combed, 60 hectare extrapolative, best choices made cuvée in ode to the generous and convivial Roman officer and the monks who took his name and brought his relics to Chablis. Structure is at the heart and soul of the Saint Martin so it is a bit of hard to get at but highly recommended for slow, meditative assessment. Great compressed tart, all in terroir, soil and climate multi-interfaced chardonnay. Few ‘Chablis’ not specific of Premier or Grand Cru terroir can match its poise and precision. Drink 2017-2021. Tasted July 2016 @DomaineLaroche@SelectWinePros@Select_Wines

More than the Petit Chablis, as it should, the Chablis improves on fruit, ideal and expression, but also because of the cleaving and jaunty vintage. In ’14 Chablis is really precise, of an expansive mouthfeel, a lemon concern, condensed sweet bitters and all in all, really textural. Flat out delicious and full. So full, but ready to delight and divine for two more years. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted July 2016 @BenjaminLAROCHE@StemWineGroup

La Manufacture takes Chablis to a brazen level in and out of 2014 and whatever precision was shown by L’Atelier is elevated in focus with La Manufacture. The vernacular learned and utterances expressed are from precision in choice of fruit and how the vintage is left to speak with this poignant, direct attack. I actually find this a bit closed in its extended youth, perhaps a cause of nature over nurture from its combination, or accumulation of fruit. The locations of Beine, Maligny and Lignorelles are its sources. This ’14 will really shine in 2017, a high-water mark up to a wave’s peak at the point where ancient sea fossils and geological rock progression distill into settled salinity, melded into the piquant and the trenchant. Drink 2017-2020. Tasted July 2016 @BenjaminLAROCHE@StemWineGroup

Typically flinty and stony Chablis from Moreau of Portlandian influence and typically easy to get to know, as per the forward vintage. All good berries and the ease of ripening is here on display. Chablis never had it so good, easy and lazy. Drink up. Drink 2016-2017. Tasted August 2016

The vineyards for Moreau’s Chablis gathering are located in the village of Beine on the Left Bank and interestingly enough are older than the Premier Cru. So here the fruit is pulled from vines 35-40 years of age. As much mineral layering as you are likely to find in a Chablis-designate cuvée and so well-rounded for 2015, with grace and style. The broadest of Chablis definition, reliable to tell the whole truth, for the copacetic vintage, the hills all around and the classic flinty, borne straight out of stone chardonnay. Some citrus of course and fine acidity if not the most striking of better than good Chablis vintages. Good terroir breeds good Chablis and with a touch of flint this brings it all together. Perfect, textbook, dictionary Chablis in a ripe and forthright style. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted twice, July and September 2016 @MoreauLouis1

On the far opposite side of Chablis’ right bank, at the village of Viviers where it is a colder, morning sun terroir. An estate created by Louis’ father in 1965. A cooler and slightly herbal Chablis with a leaner profile. A good comparative to the Beine Chablis, where the shadows are not as long and the terroir does not make as many demands on your palate. Last tasted July 2016.

A flint foot forward and step back balm of a Chablis with a settled raft of lees knick-knack and some willy-nilly resonance. Gains stature with citrus and spice as it fleshes in glass and mouth. Perhaps a stave or two of wood is making the play. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted January 2016 @MoreauLouis1

Ancestral pays hommage to a long legacy of Chablis in the Laroche-Nicolle families, to ancient earth folds, the shells and fossils left behind by oceans. Takes up where Petit Chablis left off in the giving vintage to press on with roundness and richesse. Optimum phenolic fruit and 500L barrels deem “a combination of Charly’s will and mother nature’s season” into this ripe Chablis. In 2015, with fully realized malo this morphs into a happier, slightly magical dichotomy. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted July 2016 #charlynicolle

Ancestrum is an old vines (approximately 55 years) Chablis cuveé and here from a vintage driven by crisp, pure and clean acidity. An extraordinary level of dry extract conspires to elevate both the luxury and the perceived sweetness but every sip returns into territories occupied by that ’14 acidity. Ancestrum is Chablis specific to Charly Nicolle, to ploughing, tilling, hoeing, pruning and harvesting his golden grapes. It is a pure reminder of how basic and pleasurable Chablis can be. Drink 2017-2020. Tasted July 2016 #charlynicolle

Terroir De Chichée is tasted first in a line-up of seven lieu-dit produced by Patrick Piuze, a Right Bank limestone plateau Chablis that “always takes the wind of the vintage.” The smoothest of entries transitions seamlessly to Chablis in which acidity runs up, down, across and in diagonal streaks across the palate. Done up in natural yeasts, like all the Piuze wines because “there’s no (other) point. It’s on the grape.” Clean, dry, clear and concise. Straight to the Chichée point. Acidity, even in the context of Chablis, must be your thing for Chichée to be your friend. I’d recommend seeking out Burgundian cuisine in the hands of a Japanese chef. Drink 2016-2020. Tasted July 2016 @patrickpiuze@LaCelesteLevure@LiffordON

This second in Puize’s series of seven lieu-dits tastes at first draws more linear and then branches its lines for a broader approach to Chablis. From the cooler “des Couverts” parcel abutting the Vaulorent Premier Cru on the north-facing section of the Grand Cru hill, it is from here in a northerly locale beyond the borders of Grand Cru climats Preuses and Bougros where flint, richness and ancient shells intercede. If only because this was made in 2015, the near-Vaulorent cumulative effect is almost too easy to access. Bloody delicious and drink now Chablis. Drink 2016-2018. Tasted July 2016 @patrickpiuze@LaCelesteLevure@LiffordON

In the pantheon of the seven lieu-dits Piuze Chablis this is likely the great terroir despite its moniker that suggests a broader, cumulative expression. Terroirs is plucked and indeed speaks a Forêts language, its fruit native to the north facing hill occupied by the steely patron of the larger Left Bank Montmains Premier Cru. The reserve and quietude of Patrick’s ’15 is quite surprising but the circumvention of palate acidity is exhilarating and nearly frightening. Lemon meets much lime, texture wraps and ramps, precision leads to density. Striking but with the knowledge that ’14 was and will be more so. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted July 2016 @patrickpiuze@LaCelesteLevure@LiffordON

The twenty-fifth wine we taste and Patrick’s choice to remember 2008 is this Terroirs de Chablis, a micro-specific lieu-dit spoken of Forêts vernacular formed on the northern exposition of the Montmains Premier Cru hill. Piuze loves this vintage, noting that “any appellation passes (the ’08 test).” The freshness here astounds. Were this served blind I would certainly guess 2014. Lime is everywhere, limestone everywhere else. Acidity rings in and out of every crevice and pore. If this T de C does not look back and show what Patrick Piuze will be capable of in Chablis then you won’t find a wine that will. And you won’t need to. Drink 2016-2018. Tasted at the domain with Patrick Piuze, July 2016 @patrickpiuze@LaCelesteLevure@LiffordON

Courgis was touched by some hail in 2015 on the first of September, a day Patrick Piuze says “I will always remember.” That was the day Piuze had to gather up seven years of go it alone fortitude to make the best of a difficult situation. He had to make a wine with some reduction, more upfront acidity and a different sort of citrus. Resist the temptation to make what he wanted and listen instead to the weather and the vintage. There is major fruit in this Courgis, a Chablis “wherever he laid his hat was his home.” Sly, in the lieu-dit family, Courgis “was a rollin’ stone.” Drink 2017-2020. Tasted July 2016 @patrickpiuze@LaCelesteLevure@LiffordON

Fyé comes fourth in a horizontal set of seven lieu-dits, a terroir across the tractor road from the “cape” Chapelot at the base of the fan-like shaped Montée de Tonnerre climat. The herbology and savour in Fyé is almost certainly magnified because of ’15 but so is the texture. The mouthfeel is fuller and wonderfully critical to balance and redemption. Drink 2017-2020. Tasted at the domain with Patrick Piuze, July 2016 @patrickpiuze@LaCelesteLevure@LiffordON

La Grand Vallée is the Piuze rendering of the lieu-dit Les Pargues, a Left Bank single-vineyard flanked by the Premier crus Butteaux and Forêts. The exposure is the same just one hill over. Affinities are shared with Terroirs de Chablis though the lemon-lime, layering and persistence run deeper. This also steps up in length, with really old barrels stretching the fruit to an elastic density in a smoky Chablis forged from precision. Drink 2017-2022. Tasted July 2016 @patrickpiuze@LaCelesteLevure@LiffordON

Tasted side-by-side with La Grand Vallée 2015, the Piuze ’14 from the lieu-dit Les Pargues “shows off the good acidity of the vintage.” With Premier crus Butteaux and Forêts acting as bookends, the Pargues enjoys a one-off hill same exposure and the citrus intensity here is palpable. It’s that lemon-lime, Terroirs de Chablis thing run deeper and in ’14, to the depths of possibility. This plays multi-fret grapefruit notes without capo, bends and holds them forever. Drink 2017-2022. Tasted July 2016 @patrickpiuze@LaCelesteLevure@LiffordON

As if handed off like a relay torch or baton from the Petit Chablis, the thread of elegance, purity and clarity continues in the Séguinot Bordet Chablis. Freshness floats in Chablis suspension, a liquid not so much viscous but one that acts as a cradling or a coddling. There is spice up on the aromatic front and it heads straight north to tease and tingle the olfactory senses. Deeper down it’s all inter-metallic compounds and alloys, a dimension that exists in a realm beyond chardonnay. Chablis. A circumambient capacity resistant to wood or nut but steals subtle aspects of both. Tasted with proprietor Jean-François Bordet in Auxerre he concludes, “my story is in memory.” Chablis by wrote. Drink 2016-2022. Tasted July and September 2016 @BordetJean@TheCaseForWine

Rive Droite is pulled off of a southern slope exposure on the right bank facing from Montée de Tonnerre and the Grand Cru Blanchots. It is a fine and delicate Chablis, golden from ripeness and typically 2015 but certainly very mineral because it can’t help but be on this side of the Chablis tracks. Wisdom and what comes natural from yields at 50 hL/L off 45 year-old vines seek and find a balance struck between minerality and maturity, but this is certainly on the ripe side. “It’s not complicated,” notes Cyril Testut. He picks on berry and seed. “You must have phenolic ripeness or the grapes will immediately begin to start oxidizing after picking. If they are ripe they will not seek it out. ” May as well be Premier Cru but it needs not be. Very good length. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted July 2016 #DomaineTestut

Right Bank Rive Droite faces south on its poignant slope en face de Montée de Tonnerre and Blanchot Grand Cru. As good as ’15 is, in ’14 there flexes and strains much more vitality and with fruit not as obviously ripe. While the lack of self-regulation might cause some suffering (at least in a commercially appealing sense) it causes no compromise to balance (at least in terms of classic Chablis personality). The complexity of place really rises because the fruit is not ahead and even lagging just behind the acidity and the intense mineral. Rive Droit is right side of town top cru, white stone blessed all the way. Drink 2016-2020. Tasted July 2016 #DomaineTestut

Labeled Grand Vin De Bourgogne to elevate its Chablis status from a (2000 bottle) cuvée (named for Gérard’s wife Hélène) that draws one third of its fruit from 10 Premier Cru hectares. Aged in 100 per cent barriques blended with a small portion from stainless steel. This is not so typical of Tremblay or Chablis, from primarily 40-plus year-old vines, of a luxuriance that separates it from the Premier Cru. The palate and texture are flooded by a serious creaminess from oak but the lemon is so intense and the acidity runs extremely wild. Chablis at its lavish best, in bed with Beaune. Drink 2017-2021. Tasted at the domain with Vincent Tremblay, July 2016 #DomaineGerardTremblay

From Beine, here a more reserved, classic, stoic, orchard fruit-led Chablis. Exceeds itself and its emollient aromatics on the palate with good fleshy spirit and then steps into grounded, almost earthy territory for Chablis. More clay than calcaire and not fully accepting of the vintage. Will please most in the short term. Drink 2016-2017. Tasted July 2016

Chablis Vieilles Vignes

The abbey and the saint’s namesake vineyard’s vines are approximately 60 years-old and reduced output is in the vicinity of 30-35 hL/L yields. As always and nurtured with expectation you immediately whiff the old vine charm, lift, ethereal density and a pesto, this kind of herbal salinity that old vines bring. A brine that younger vines do not, with roots here burrowing six plus feet down into the kimmeridgian, far past the flora up top, seeking secondary and tertiary character. It takes little mindful and acquiescent effort to concur on the notification that double the length is perceived as compared to the younger Sainte Claire. Drink 2016-2020. Tasted July 2016 @chablisbrocard@LiffordON

Les Vénérables is the old vines cuvée that sees the same 14 months élevage as the other two, La Pierrelee and La Sereine. The lees effect continues but with Vénérables the running thread of aromatic sweetness is at first accessed and then subjugated to heavy layering, structure, compression and richness. Very citrus, first curd and then zest, coupled upon and adding on top of itself and nearly piercing. Pith joins on the palate. Classic Chablis. Crunchy and tart, like a bite into an acidulated green apple. Drink 2016-2020. Tasted at the domaine with Vincent Bartement, July 2016 #LaChablisienne@vbartement@Vinexxperts

Planted in 1932 near Villy by Romain Collet’s maternal grandfather, these (nearing 75 year-old) vines bring the baller brilliance to Chablis, not in compression or density but for Collet, just the opposite. They gift ethereally, from 40 hL/L yields, a number pretty solid for such old vines. This 2014 impresses understanding about a vineyard with real mirondage, holding up a mirror to the past and paying it forward. Small grapes of vivid concentration breathe acidity, at first and then finesse. Precise Chablis is a great thing, especially when that inclination lingers for a very long time. Drink 2017-2021. Tasted at the domain with Romain Collet, July 2016 #domainejeancollet

The Lignorelles old vines on Portlandia limestone are at least 70 years-old, obviously the philanthropist of rich Chablis though here with sidetracks through verdant greens and herbal fields in balmy weather. This in 2014 and surprisingly approachable. Ripeness, sapidity and savour converge. The flavours zig-zag from lime to green apple and more bitters than many are seen in bright light aspects that remind of in country kin aligoté and auxerrois. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted July 2016 #domainehamelin@oenophilia1

Once again it is the elegance that old vines bring to Chablis that is so counterintuitive to what they do almost anywhere else in the world. In La Manufacture’s case the reflexive fineness and haute innervation that is derived from these old vines is both calming and tangible. The consciousness is latent to a slope upon which the drive of direct acidity and salinity cling, angling in the particular way of the exceptional 2014 vintage. Laroche’s Chablis VV makes peace with tension, finds harmony before the sister Chablis and yet will live a longer life. Drink 2016-2020. Tasted July 2016 @BenjaminLAROCHE@StemWineGroup

Located in Beine, Domaine de la Motte from the Famille Michaud fashions Chablis of nerve, tension and high on the floral scale. The old vines are 40-plus in age, doling out the proverbial excess of concentration and here with malolactic fully noticed from the start, for the first time in principal Chablis. Though almost certainly (and entirely) Inox barrel fermented, the malo is rendered in buttered popcorn and lemon. Still too young for the components to come together so put it in the three to five year conversation. Drink 2017-2020. Tasted July 2016 @gmlechablis

What is it that old vines bring to Chablis? Elegance, temperament or calm? All of the above. Jean-François Bordet’s grandfather planted these vines, 78 years ago. He’s 93 and drinks Chablis every day. So wisdom seems to be the key, that and a cordial-conjugal relationship between this every day wine and a consumer. The purity is predicated on lime and predicts many a cordial connection. This delicate Vieilles Vignes is also practical for every special occasion and it is possessive of surprising strength. It’s what you need, if necessary, every day. Drink 2017-2020. Tasted July 2016 @BordetJean@TheCaseForWine

The vines are 50 years-old and from the same (right) bank as the (Rive Droit) so here the stylistic is replicated albeit with a deeper sense of the locale, but so much furtherer elegance and balance. The lees melding into texture replicates upon itself, recreating a cloning that interweaves minerality upon fruit in mille-feuille layers. Very mature, grown-up winemaking. Concentrated and clean. Still, very ’15. Drink 2016-2020. Tasted July 2016 #DomaineTestut

The wines of the Tremblay family exemplify the vignoble de Chablis and with this old vines you can’t help but repeat the house mantra, “c’est ce qui donne cette…arrière goût minéral qui semble avoir été extrait des entrailles de la terre!” Extracted from the kimmeridgian, from Exogyra virgula, from 25 million years of formed marno-calcaire. “Goût minéral,” the taste of mineral, from the bowels of the earth. It matters not that this Chablis is from the forward, fruit first, commercial vintage. With a selection made from Tremblay’s 40-plus year-old vineyards the high density of dry extraction from fruit does indeed lead to more weight and body. Mineral yes, but you will all like it too. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted at the domain with Vincent Tremblay, July 2016 #DomaineGerardTremblay

You never forget your first hunk of #kimmeridgian love @BIVBChablis @vinsdebourgogne #chablis #cotedelechet

Chablis. The great equalizer. A wine of gold and light, worth opening at every occasion, full of spirit, possessive of protracted acidity. With its capture of ancient geology, oceanic shells and Jurassic rocks, it’s alacrity flourishes with utmost consistency. The words Chablis and non-performer are disavowed of being uttered together. The history of customer satisfaction is written in stone.

In Ontario there are Petit Chablis and Chablis always available on the LCBO’s General List. At any given time there are more Chablis, Premier and Grand Cru floating about in various VINTAGES locations. Only one can be found on the VINTAGES Essentials list and yet it is arguably the most essential white wine. What’s up with that? Has anyone ever spent a moment of regret on a single Chablis purchase from an Ontario store?

Chablis is chardonnay for varietal purposes but only that links it to other chardonnay. Chablis is more than chardonnay, not existential as chardonnay and if you ask wiser men than me, is not chardonnay. And Chablis is getting inside people’s heads. I am not the only one who lives and breathes borne witness to the new Burgundy winds of change. It is of late that I have noticed (other) Bourgogne whites eerily coming closer and closer to smelling, tasting and acting like Chablis. Why would that be?

Part of the reason is certainly a response to the current rising trend of a global veering away from oak. But there has to be more to it than that. Who would refute the notion that producers in Beaune and the more southerly climes of Burgundy are looking north and thinking, dreaming, hoping to mimic Chablis. The idea is not so far-fetched. Wouldn’t it be fair to say that global warming has had an effect on Bourgogne and punches the stylistic meter towards Chablis? How many times have you recently read a tasting note in which a critic discussing a chardonnay style, an example say from Ontario, New Zealand or even Sonoma, as being comparable to Chablis? How many winemakers wouldn’t kill to have their chardonnay considered and reviewed with Chablis as the benchmark? Yes, it’s all Chablis to me.

The first week of July excavated a head first, personal hermeneutic, all in to nothing but Chablis. Out the door from Charles de Gaulle into a taxi to Auxerre and then straight up the Premier Cru Côte de Léchet up on the Left Bank of the Serein. This with Au Coeur du Vin’s Chablis guru Eric Szablowski. A bottle of Brocard at Bar Le Quai in Auxerre. Early next morning to Domaine William Fèvre with Director Didier Séguier, then La Chablisienne with Oenologist Vincent Bartement, at Domaine Gérard Tremblay with Vincent Tremblay and finally the Domaine of Edouard Vocoret and Eleni Theodoropoulos. Days end with a Domaine François Raveneau Chablis Grand Cru Blanchot 2009 at Auxerre’s Restaurant Le Folie.

Look into the #chablis pensieve and see that #escargot @lafolieauxerre

Breakfast on day two in Chablis was spent tasting with Patrick Piuze, followed by Domaine René et Vincent Dauvissat, Lucie Thieblemont and Charly Nicolle and at Château de Béru with Athénaïs de Béru. And then, Auxerre’s Restaurant L’aspérule.

I met with Julien Brocard in front of the Abbaye de Sainte Claire at Domaine Jean-Marc Brocard, Benjamin Laroche at La Manufacture, Sébastien Dampt and Domaine Barat. In Auxerre I tasted with BIVB Chablis’ Jean-François Bordet of Domaine Séguinot-Bordet at Eric Gallet’s Le Bourgogne.

A final day began with winemaker Matthieu Mangenot at Domaine Long-Depaquit, then Romain Collet at Domaine Jean Collet et Fils, Cyril Testut of Domaine Testut, with Elodie Saudemont at Domaine Laroche and then Domaine Louis Moreau. Et finalement, a Domaine François Raveneau Chablis Premier Cru Montée de Tonnerre 2009 at Au Fil du Zinc in Chablis.

This may or may not have happened #raveneau #memory #monteedetonnerre

It was not until I ventured down the QEW two weeks later to attend my fourth consecutive International Cool Climate Chardonnay Conference that I put on my retrospective spectacles to see that what I had been tasting that entire week in France was in fact chardonnay. I mean I knew I was but never really stopped to think about it in such terms. It was simply at the time, in the moment, just Chablis. Even at i4c there were moments when my brain was churning in Chablis motives, machinations and emojis. Did you feel it too?

It helped that some friendships forged in Burgundy were furthered in Niagara because these folks came to spread the Pure Chablis gospel. Scripture that includes the sine qua non of gentle pressing, cold settling, Kimmeridgian, Portlandian and Calcaire soils, aging on fine lees and sometimes, but not always kissing a natural malolactic fermentation with a whisper of French oak. Sandrine Audegond of Domaine Laroche, Jean-François Bordet and Françoise Roure, Marketing and communication manager du Bureau Interprofessionnel des Vins de Bourgogne (Burgundy Wine Board) were on hand to help turn a chardonnay clambake into a quarry quorum. The word mineral was heard to be uttered on several occasions and no injuries were reported.

Wines that deliver a sense of place or, as we like to refer to it here in Ontario as “somewhereness,” always seem to stand out. The switchboard for the ideal is in Burgundy where the intrinsic reality is calculated in climats, that is, plots or blocks defined by the confluence of place, geology, slope, aspect and climate. Ancient somewhereness aside the current VINTAGES release includes some eerily Chablis-like “entry-level” white Burgundies, far from barrel-dominated and anything but entry-level. If to you climat, unadulterated chardonnay and respected producers mean anything at all, these wines are worth the price. We can’t all afford white Burgundy but here the quality far exceeds the cost.

The September and October releases are home to exemplary Premier Cru and looking back over the past several months I have found more Chablis, Premier Cru and Grand Cru wines that I had the opportunity to taste in Burgundy and remain available in VINTAGES. Looking for Chablis in Ontario? Look no further.

In VINTAGES September 3rd, 2016

This entry-level chardonnay is La Chablisienne’s away from Chablis foray into Bourgogne, or perhaps a combing and combining of the two. The nose is steely, flinty and smoky, the palate full of lemon zest, limoncello and lemon meringue pie. Touching in its tartness and nearly very impressive from its depth and for its length. Goes to show you can take the Chablisienne out of Chablis but you can’t take the Chablis out of Chablisienne. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted August 2016 #LaChablisienne@Vinexxperts

Typically flinty and stony Chablis from Moreau of Portlandian influence and typically easy to get to know, as per the forward vintage. All good berries and the ease of ripening is here on display. Chablis never had it so good, easy and lazy. Drink up. Drink 2016-2017. Tasted August 2016

I rarely comment of a white Burgundy’s hue but this pours as pale as a Beaune ghost with villages transparency. Almost Chablis-like in its quiet sincerity, the calcaire is everything here. The vintage is a good one and the acidity works the wine with natural ease. Very fine example of “reserve” style entry-level Bourgogne. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted August 2016 @BouchardPere@WoodmanWS

The O. Leflaive basic Bourgogne has yet to cease its twitching and circulating with the mouth-watering cascades of its acidity. The freshness is alive and well, the vitality striking for and from the vintage. Ancient geology aside this chardonnay is also Chablis-like, far from wooden and so very struck rock tart. Acting as a scintillant of the lightning order, fruit is not an afterthought but it is relayed with metallurgy as its conduit. Easily worth the extra five bucks in comparison to most entry-level white Burgundies. Drink 2017-2022. Tasted August 2016 @OlivierLeflaive

While all the Chablis climats enjoyed an ideal growing season in 2014 I have to say that the Premier Cru Beauroy made full use of its gifts. The parcel lacks the striking mineral underfoot of close neighbours Côte de Léchet and Vaillons but what it does have is roundness and depth of fruit. In 2014 those aspects converge with the Chablis mineral ethos to paint a picture who’s whole is both the sum and the accumulation of its parts. Hamelin makes full advantage of fruit, rock and vintage. The triumvirate is saddled with ideal and ripe acidity and the extract is second to none. A prime example and just about as good as it gets in the beautiful king’s climat. Drink 2016-2023. Tasted August 2016 #domainehamelin@oenophilia1

In VINTAGES September 17th, 2016

Straight ahead and 2014 focused Chablis from Jadot, tight and stony at first but then shimmies up to reveal richer fruit than some and equanimity in acidity-mineral undertones. A wide and all-encompassing no doubter of a wine that succeeds no matter the breadth of its fruit sourcing. Classy all the way. Drink 2016-2020. Tasted September 2016 @ljadot@HalpernWine

This is a striking Chablis, drawn out of an atypical vintage and from the venerable Côte de Lechet Premier Cru, an angled Left Bank climat of necessitous Kimmerridgian soil. The rocks there may be my most favourite, craggy, ash blond chunks replete with ancient sea creatures embedded in the golden stratum. This teases with the gaseous and aerified aspects of the oxidative-evolved vintage but the picking and the treatment here are spot on and just in time, because just a day or two later and too stark would have been the result. Terrific weight, pitch perfect acidity and a grazing, elongated finish. Top, top quality ’13 not to be missed. Drink 2016-2020. Tasted September 2016 @SimonnetFebvre@ImportWineMAFWM

Always available on the LCBO General List

Tasted with winemaker Matthieu Mangenot at the Long-Depaquit domaine, this is Chablis raised 100 per cent in stainless steel. Gifts the immediacy of mineral and acidity, from Chichée to the south of Chablis and also the eastern areas of Beru and Viviers. Higher altitudes where snow and then frost at the end of April 2016 will mean a tiny harvest but for 2015 the acidity is top notch, despite the fat and easy vintage, with more mineral driven into the palate (with some perceived though feigning sweetness) and a real gelid glide down the backside. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted July 2016 @Matth_Mangenot#LongDepaquit

On the far opposite side of Chablis’ right bank, at the village of Viviers where it is a colder, morning sun terroir. An estate created by Louis’ father in 1965. A cooler and slightly herbal Chablis with a leaner profile. A good comparative to the Beines Chablis, where the shadows are not as long and the terroir does not make as many demands on your palate. Tasted July 2016.

A flint foot forward and step back balm of a Chablis with a settled raft of lees knick-knack and some willy-nilly resonance. Gains stature with citrus and spice as it fleshes in glass and mouth. Perhaps a stave or two of wood is making the play. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted January 2016

An all plots combed, 60 hectare extrapolative, best choices made cuvée in ode to the generous and convivial Roman officer and the monks who took his name and brought his relics to Chablis. Structure is at the heart and soul of the Saint Martin so it is a bit of hard to get at but highly recommended for slow, meditative assessment. Great compressed tart, all in terroir, soil and climate multi-interfaced chardonnay. Few ‘Chablis’ not specific of Premier or Grand Cru terroir can match its poise and precision. Drink 2017-2021. Tasted July 2016 @DomaineLaroche@SelectWinePros@Select_Wines

From #chablis to #i4c16 see you in #niagara @coolchardonnay @DomaineLaroche

The vintage is a ripe, accessible and easy to love one so this marks a 90 degree turn for the Saint Martin. This is Laroche’s most important cuvée, sold in 80 countries and collected from select plots across 60 hectares of vines. Structure will always direct this cuvée and so long as Sandrine Audegond is winemaker you can be sure that a taut entry will be joined by some subtle oak richness (in 2015, eight per cent in large, 25 year-old, 55 hL foudres). It’s just an aromatic hint but look forward with eyes closed and inculcate the texture addendum. Acids are soft and caressing. Drink 2017-2021. Tasted July 2016

In VINTAGES October 15th, 2016

The vineyards for Moreau’s Chablis gathering are located in the village of Beines on the Left Bank and interestingly enough are older than the Premier Cru. So here the fruit is pulled from vines 35-40 years of age. As much mineral layering as you are likely to find in a Chablis-designate cuvée and so well-rounded for 2015, with grace and style. The broadest of Chablis definition, reliable to tell the whole truth, for the copacetic vintage, the hills all around and the classic flinty, borne straight out of stone chardonnay. Some citrus of course and fine acidity if not the most striking of better than good Chablis vintages. Good terroir breeds good Chablis and with a touch of flint this brings it all together. Perfect, textbook, dictionary Chablis in a ripe and forthright style. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted twice, July and September 2016

Another side by side 2015 to 2014 comparison which is a brilliant play by Mr. Julien Brocard to offer up a sense of relativity which is essential for understanding not just his, but all Chablis. Great freshness and woven salinity, brine and umami, from the lieu-dit within the greater Montmains climat. Butteaux’s western Montmains locale is one of major importance and significance, stratified and magnified in the crazy good 2014 vintage. The fight concentration is quite remarkable and rendered into pure citrus honey in the hands of Brocard. Really fine and tactile Chablis, tapestry textured, dentil frieze entablature of feigning and palpability. Butteaux is a wine of sun, balance and elegance from which ancient geology is the catalyst to make it all happen. Essential Chablis right here. Drink 2017-2027. Tasted September 2016 @chablisbrocard@LiffordON

In VINTAGES October 29th, 2016

As if handed off like a relay torch or baton from the Petit Chablis, the thread of elegance, purity and clarity continues in the Séguinot Bordet Chablis. Freshness floats in Chablis suspension, a liquid not so much viscous but one that acts as a cradling or a coddling. There is spice up on the aromatic front and it heads straight north to tease and tingle the olfactory senses. Deeper down it’s all inter-metallic compounds and alloys, a dimension that exists in a realm beyond chardonnay. Chablis. A circumambient capacity resistant to wood or nut but steals subtle aspects of both. Tasted with proprietor Jean-François Bordet in Auxerre he concludes, “my story is in memory.” Chablis by wrote. Drink 2016-2022. Tasted July and September 2016 @BordetJean@TheCaseForWine

Future VINTAGES releases

In many ways a carbon copy of the superb 2012, herbal, sharp and as predicted, saline and piquant. Vaillons is a special parcel, a climat with such linear reality and basic, factual raison d’être.￼￼ The Kimmeridgian, calcareous clay and limestone is presented, discussed and celebrated for good reason because it makes for perfect conditions in Vaillons.
The 40-45 year-old Laroche parcel sucks it all in and don’t let anyone evince you away from or de-program you otherwise. Be the mineral. Vaillons of old vines (yes, they too work magic) that is precise, trenchant and miles beyond merely dependable. Treated to some battonage and very minimal oak. Examines the layered intensity of Laroche and the exceptionality of Vaillons. Tasted twice, at Domaine Laroche and at #i4c16. Drink 2018-2022. Tasted July 2016

This was tasted at #14c16. As with 2011 but in contrast to 2012, the limestone stands chalky and flinty up front because Pascal Bouchard has allowed it to do so. The site is windy, not so steep and a cooler sort of red clay mixed in terroir. Quite typically energetic 2013 with the mineral sharing the stage with thick air whiffing gassy and atmospheric. It’s a tang that comes from cool metals and it pours or rather oozes with a squeeze of preserved lemon. The Montmains is an open-minded Premier Cru and this Bouchard works with the climat’s malleability to be transformed in a vintage like ’13. Drink 2016-2019. Tasted July 2016

Beauroy is a south facing Premier Cru harvested earliest than most and also done so to preserve freshness, acidity and the most that can be gained from its subtle terroir. Fevre treats it with 15 per cent oak and the remainder goes into tank. Beauroy’s deference here is acquiescence, its character preserved, like lemon compressed in a jar or a curd slowly concentrated to the point of pure, glossy, silken texture. I find this typical of Fevre for 2014, consistent with the rich house style and yet may be the most elastic and restorative Premier Cru of the eight tasted. Impressive all around. Drink 2017-2021. Tasted July 2016 @williamfevre_@WoodmanWS

Tasted at the domaine, from three parcels, Montée de Tonnerre, Pied d’aloup and Côte de Chapelot, climats up on the hill on the right bank close to the town of Chablis. Rounder (with 10 per cent old oak) than Mont de Milieu but still of terrific 2014 acidity, though noticeable with more orchard fruit to mingle with the stones. The tension increases with some time spent with the M de T and like well-structured Premier Cru Chablis will want to do, it lingers with a combination of tension and amenability. Part gentille Alouette and part Kimmeridgian flinty, this is a terrific example of the co-habitable duality of great Chablis. It is also indicative of the transformative restoration and direction of Billaud-Simon under the auspices of winemaker Olivier Bailly. I will let this bird rest for a couple more years and then a promise. “Je te plumerai.” Drink 2018-2025. Tasted July 2016 @Billaud_Simon

VINTAGES Classics

Tasted with Oenologist Vincent Bartement at the domaine. The Grand Cru Grenouilles sits just above the D965 and the Serein River, with Les Clos and Valmur to its left, Bougros and Preuses to its right and Vaudésir above. It may be the least understood, least discussed and oft forgotten Grand Cru, in part because La Chablisienne farms and bottles a near exclusive (seven of the 9.5 hectares) quantity on the smallest of the Chablis Grand Cru. In a small horizontal (that included ’12, ’10, ’09 and ’05) when you travel back a year ahead of that cracking 2012 there emerges a clear olfactive difference. The self-effaced “neologism with cloudy contours” whiffs into more herbology and perhaps some crustaceous notes. Certainly a raised funky beat. The gustative sensation salvos to more glycerin and although not as much texture, the age is offering a minor oxidative, liquid maize drip into perceived honey. As a consequence length is not as pronounced and if this ’11 is (at this stage) the most awkward of the three (consecutive vintages), it is also the most tactile and the most astute. Drink 2016-2021. Tasted July 2016 #lachablisienne@Vinexxperts

The Fèvre holdings are not so much a cornering of the market but more so, let’s say, are representative as existing out of the creator and chair of the exchange. The four hectares owned, farmed and produced of the largest of the (25 hectare) Grand Crus confirms Fèvre as the largest producer of Les Clos. Fifty per cent of the noble and lofty locale was planted by William’s father in the 1940’s, at the top of the hill. This 2014 is prodigious, ponderous and cracking, because it is a Fèvre, due to the house approach for this stand alone vintage and simply by virtue of that vintage. Here you have the richest Les Clos of them all, perhaps, but the puissance is dramatic. There is more pith and density here than any other. It is simply a wow Grand Cru expression, searing, intense, layered, compact, compressed and very, very long. This is the most gregarious, strutting peacock of Chablis. Tasted at the domaine with Director Didier Séguier. Drink 2020-2035. Tasted July 2016